Friday, October 18, 2013

Goodbye to the City

This past month has been utter chaos.  After looking for months for a house in anticipation of baby #2 (more on that later) and having all but given up, we found one.  Exciting yes, but also put us on a roller coaster ride of dealing with the purchase, deciding what to do with our condo in the city, setting up the move, figuring out our nanny situation and the list goes on and on and on.  All while 7 months prego.  In all of the craziness, I haven't processed a reality that is only now starting to hit me....that in in 2 weeks, we will be leaving the city...forever. We'll be leaving our condo....the first home we've owned, the home where we opened our wedding gifts, had many parties, the home where we brought our son from the hospital for the first time and the place he, now as a 2yr old, refers to as home.  We're leaving a neighborhood we have grown to love, and the things we don't love about it are things in a way I can't imagine living without.  I know we will find completely different things to love about our new neighborhood, and we are ecstatic about having more space and a yard, but I feel the need to say goodbye to some of the things that will be missed most as we move on to the next phase:

Goodbye to walking.  When you live in the city, you are used to walking everywhere.  I'll miss our walks to the farmer's market, parks, restaurants.  I'll miss walking Noah to the end of our street to watch choo-choos.

Goodbye to our dry cleaner, our 7-11 employees, our nail salon peeps.  We have oddly close relationships with all of them.  Our dry cleaner gave us money for our wedding.  Our nail lady (I say "our" because they know Adam better than me, not for pedicures, but for foot massages ha) has texted me for playdates.  The 7-11 guys know our kid's name.  It's weirdly awesome, and will be missed.

Goodbye some of the best food in city within delivery range.  Macku, Flub a Dub, Yen's on random Sunday nights, oh how you will be missed.

Goodbye to the crazies.  You get very accustomed to crazies in the city.  I may miss the guy on the El wearing sweatpants with no underwear while eating egg salad with his bare hands  Or I may not.  TBD.

Goodbye to summer street festivals.  At least we'll have Ravinia.

Goodbye to Gay Pride and Market Days just outside our condo.  I can't say I'll miss finding random condoms in the alley, but the sheer spectacle of it all, sure I'll miss it.  On that same note, goodbye to the trannies, cross-dressers, and the men who wear bikini bottoms at any time of year.  It all seems so normal to me now.

Goodbye to the Cubs.  While on one side of our condo we have Boystown, on the other side we have Wrigley. Goodbye to the "bros" who get kicked out of Houndstooth every game day, goodbye to the drunk girls in shorts on 40 degree opening days, goodbye to being able to walk to one of the best places in the country to eat a brat, drink Busch Heavy and watch baseball.

Goodbye to cabs.  Oof, hello to designated driving.

Goodbye to the energy.  You suburb veterans may call it noise, but to me the ambulance sirens, the honking, the people walking at all hours of the night, and yelling over the sounds of the El while on your phone is all part and parcel of an energy you simply can't match anywhere else.  I'll miss catching whiffs of pee in random places.  I really will. 

Goodbye to lugging groceries/dry cleaning/kids up stairs, to tight parking spaces, to hearing people walk above you, to walking with bags of groceries, to walking in the snow to the El, to spacebagging everything, to driving through snowy alleys to park at your house, to treating a balcony like a yard, to condo association meetings.  Ok, so I won't miss any of you.  But we'll always remember how it "once was", and our city-boy son who currently knows the difference between the 8 bus and the 22 will wonder how we ever lived that way.

So goodbye city....goodbye to Roscoe, to our "Chicago" address...I am so thankful for the many years of joy you have brought to us.  I am so excited for our new adventure on the North Shore, but you will always be our first home. 

No comments:

Post a Comment