In 2003, my older sister ventured off to Chicago on a modeling contract. She was 18 and leaving everything she knew behind to be on her own in a new city. Being 13 at the time, I didn't quite grasp this. For the last 13 years, she has never left the city and my family and I, sometimes I alone, have visited probably over a dozen times over that course.
In 2011, my sister and I decided I should move out there and give it a shot. I lived on her couch for about two months, only holding down a serving job for one day, and then it was time to go back home to Michigan. I wasn't exactly sad to move back to my hometown, I had been depressed and unhappy about not succeeding in Chicago. I regret that I didn't stick it out and give it more time. I should have put in more effort to make it work. Like I said, I had a job for one day and was discouraged that because I lacked experience, I wouldn't survive and would end up back home anyway. So I cut out the middle man and gave up. Chicago is a big city with endless opportunities at my finger tips. My sister was there with her abundance of connections and I had friends there who would've been more than happy to help me find something. I guess at the time I just didn't care.
The last time I was in Chicago was in 2014, I stayed with friends, friends who have surpassed a regular friendship and are more like sisters, and fell back in love with the city. I was going through a hard time then, a 13 month long relationship with a boyfriend I lived with for the majority of that time had just broken up with me via text message a few months before. I had been living at a friends parents house and just wasn't in the greatest spot of my life. After conferring with my friends, it was agreed on all sides that I needed a week in Chicago. So, I requested a week off of work, bought my round trip Amtrak ticket and started packing.
Stepping out of Union Station was the most refreshing feeling I'd had in a long time, I felt like I was home. I could breathe again. I waited for my friend to collect me and we grabbed the bus. I loved it. I oddly missed the city buses, taking the El and flagging down cabs.
Walking down the streets of Lincoln Park and Wicker Park neighborhoods felt so wonderfully familiar and the scenery around me just made it that much more. It was March, still cold and wet but you could feel spring coming. After a few days of being there, my friend turned to me and said "You seem so much happier than before you came here" and I was. I felt a thousand times better than I had in months. I felt like I was finally ready to make the move back to Chicago. We talked about a time frame and living arrangements, I felt so good about the future.
Around the time I had planned to move back, I met a boy. While it wasn't serious, I wasn't ready to give up on him. The connection we had seemed promising, little did I know that he would change my entire world in just a few short months. This boy would end up getting me pregnant, therefore putting an indefinite hold on my return to Chicago. While I was both excited and scared to have a child on the way, I was also guilty of being disappointed about not being able to fulfill my plans. I don't regret keeping my son and not going, life is too short. I just wish I could've made the move, for at least a little while, before I became a mother.
While I haven't been back to the city in roughly two years, I know someday when my son is older I'll go back. Not necessarily to reside, it would break my mother's heart, but to show my son the greatness of it. I want him to explore Navy Pier, see the wonders of the Lincoln Park Zoo and even take a picture with him in front of the overrated Chicago Bean. I will definitely teach him to never refer to Chicago as "Chi-Town."
There are many things I want to expose to my child, traveling to great places is at the top of that list and Chicago seems the best place to start. For me, it will always be my second home and I hope that someday he will see it as such himself.
