Ever since I was transplanted out of a suburb of New York City and into a suburb of Milwaukee, Wisconsin at the angsty and tender age of 13, I promised myself that I would return to a city – any city – as soon as I could. I exclusively applied to colleges that were close to major cities (New York, Chicago, Boston, etc.) and settled on DePaul because it was still close enough to home. Now officially in my third year of college city living, I’ve come to appreciate this lifestyle more than I ever imagined. Beyond exposing me to more social realities and backgrounds, living and studying in a city has taught me how to put more weight into positive experiences, and less into the little stresses and snarls that come with a city lifestyle.
Example? The other morning I woke up late and quickly showered before heading to a local Starbucks to use the bathroom because our toilet had broken the night before (glamorous living, right?). While waiting on the L platform to go to class, I refresh my Twitter feed to find that there is a signaling error downtown and the whole train system is clogged up. I sprinted (slippily sprinted – picture a baby deer in pointy ballet flats on ice) to the Red Line train station to find the same problem, so I quickly flagged down a cab and slid into the backseat praying I would make it to campus on time.
By this point in my day, I’m running through the week wondering what negative thing I did to balance my karma out and get this kind of morning. The other day on the way to class, my full cup of coffee burst and spilled outside of the library (it’s probably still frozen on the sidewalk. RIP). This week has been just unjustifiably bad, and I sit in the cab angrily texting my mom wondering what I did to deserve this. And then it hits me: this is city living; this is what I had dreamt of. It seems weird too, in the middle of a crappy morning, become overwhelmingly happy to discover I’m livin’ the dream, but sometimes that’s what you have to do to make it through a day that’s only just beginning. So I look out the window and realize that this reality, of bustling to the train station in the morning to get to class is pretty cool.
It’s pretty cool to go to a college where it’s unacceptable to wear sweatpants to class because most people are dressed to the nines and wearing things like creepers and cool hats. It’s pretty cool, even though I wouldn’t consider myself a “sports person,” that during Cubs games I can hear people in the stadiums cheering and during concerts nearby I can hear them live in my living room. It’s pretty fun going from the Fullerton campus to our downtown campus for class, and it’s pretty special going to dinner with your friends in downtown Chicago. It’s pretty nice being situated in a city filled with artists, intellectuals, and creative entrepreneurs everywhere, a city where I get in for free to one of the best museums in the world if I’m bored on a Monday afternoon.
Last year I lived on our downtown campus and made a habit of taking my runs from the treadmill to the streets. I would weave through pedestrians and make my way to Millennium Park, running by all the tourist favorites and running stairs by the art museum. I would stop and help tourists with directions, or take a cool selfie in front of landmarks feeling pretty proud that they were in my backyard.
It’s so easy to get so caught up in the everyday hustle and bustle and forget how lucky we are to live the lives that we do. It’s easy to forget to be grateful for little things, like our Ventra cards or our close proximity to the best pizza places in the country. Going to college in a city certainly adds stressors, but it forces you to understand that the little snarls in your day can’t begin to overpower the incredible gift it is to have a city as your campus.
