Reflections

As I sit here watching the sunset on this long summer night over the city, I have a lot of thoughts racing through my head.

2 weeks from today we will be homeowners - pending any disasters from now until then.

We have about 1 month left in the city before we move.

One thing I feel is a sense of surreal. We are about to own a beautiful, amazing, updated, but almost 100 year old home. It is literally so much more than I was hoping for in our first home. It fits us so well! I cannot wait to call it home and experience all of the amazing things the next chapter has to offer. 

Our close date - 7/7/17 is also a hugely important day for us for another reason. It is our 10 year dating anniversary. Completely coincidental, but I think the universe had something to do with it. 10 years. We’ve gone through so much together. More details for another time, but I can’t help but reflect on how much we have grown together in that time and how much more we love each other each day.

I feel uncomfortable. For the past 7 years, we have lived in the city and my soul loves the energy of being so close to everything. I love that I can sit at home on a Friday night in my pajamas and still feel the energy of the city. I’m not sure how to be someone who lives in a suburb.

And then I contrast that with feeling of empowerment. I’ve historically had a perception that you are cool and live in the city or you sell out and live in the suburbs. But lately I’ve developed a sense of empowerment that I don’t have to choose between being cool and living in the suburbs. First, Chauncey and I made a distinct choice to live close enough to the city that it is super easy to get here. We fully plan to do all the things we love in the city. We are not moving far. Second, I think it is super cool to be able to host a dinner party for friends and family in my dining room. I think it is super cool to drink two or three (who’s counting?) glasses of wine by my fire pit in my backyard. I think it is it is super duper cool to live in the neighborhood we will be that is steps away from park and a 15 minute walk to downtown Elmhurst. The point is, I’m planning to have a badass amazing awesome life with Chauncey and we are going to do that in Elmhurst, IL.

I feel gratitude. I’m extremely grateful for the experiences we’ve had this far in Chicago. Chauncey and I went from sharing an apartment with one of my best friends (we all paid $300 a month), to getting our own apartment that was less than 400 sq ft (not exaggerating), to discovering our favorite neighborhood in Chicago - Roscoe Village, to living in a swanky, hip West Loop building (where we swam and grilled out all the time), to moving into River North with an incredible daily view of the sunset and super close walking distance to both of our jobs.  We got engaged and married here. Chauncey became a life-saving nurse here. I got my MBA here. All our memories are overwhelming in quantity and quality. And then I go back to the discomfort of leaving the city and start the whole emotional cycle over again :-). 

I really am so excited to start this next chapter of our lives. The idea of working on home projects on the weekends makes me so excited. (And it is a whole new area for me to explore with my camera! :)). I reject the idea that some people have said we need a “going away” party though. We aren’t leaving the city. We will still be here in most of the ways we are here today. We just will be getting drunk by our own private fire pit with our dog running around our private backyard on the days we aren’t:-)