I shouldn't have turned on the light.......

Life with Gracie... not so bad.

Missed opportunities..... story of my life.

I need to start carrying my camera around with me.... I have one of those camera phones, but cant figure out how to get the pictures out into the real world, so they stay in my phone as fuzzy little "oh - I think that's a picture of so-and-so".

Anyway, my technical inadequacies aside, nature can do some pretty amazing things. She is by far the best artist I have ever encountered. With the sub-zero temps this past week, and our proximity to the lake, there have been some indescribable mornings driving down Lake Shore. I thought I had had too much starbucks on my way in to work Saturday.... I couldn't tell what was up or down. The temperature of the water being so much warmer than the air, the surface of the lake looked like clouds, and the sky was so clear blue it looked like water... All rational thought left me for a moment and I wondered if I had somehow flipped my Toyota and was just too strung out on my ginormous white mocha to know the difference. Drop the skyline next to that and you have pure visual poetry.

So the moral of that story, I need to carry my camera. In the words of Ferris Bueller, " Life moves pretty fast.... if you don't stop and look around once in a while, you might miss it."

Mom didn't know it, but Grace liked the valentine too.....

Happy Valentine's Day!!


(scene from today)
A delivery man walks into the lobby carrying a huge bunch of flowers, with a teddy bear, a balloon following above a box of candy.... he asks for me. I smile and sign for the enormous bundle. My co-workers look on, oooo-ing and aahhh-ing, and one says "somebody loves you!" in a sarcastic, teasing manner. With out even looking at the card, I reply "yes someone does, and its my mother." And I was right.

Every year with out fail, mom sends me something to remind me that it doesn't have to be about romance, but it can be about the people you love. So coming from me, the eternally single girl who will never have a valentine's dinner with a husband, thanks Mom and Pokey for always thinking of me when the rest of the planet is focused on their spouses. It means more than you know to still get flowers on Valentine's Day.
Love you guys!!

Need I say more . . . . .

A celebration !! Cheers to a recent "birthday" of sorts. . . .
I wanted to take a minute to celebrate. Unfortunately, the one person I could properly celebrate this with has moved on and I am sure his new girlfriend would not share my enthusiasm, so I am stuck to celebrate myself. And I will. But side note: Best to you Ry.

I have lived in this amazing city 6 years now.....

I say "birthday" because I feel as though I almost started my life the day I unloaded that U-Haul truck in a January snow storm. My life began when I moved to Chicago. Its a difficult thing to put into words. Most people don't have it in them to be too drastically effected by their surroundings. Maybe a mood is influenced by a rainy day, or a traffic jam, but not like this.....

I will never forget the first morning I woke up in my Chicago apartment. And not just because it was hours earlier than I would have liked, thanks to the train 15 feet outside my window. But because I felt an exhale that was 10 years over due. My shoulders felt smaller, and my back felt looser, and my breathing felt deeper, and my soul felt calmer. and all this even in the midst of the complete unknown. I won't lie, I was terrified at the same time. But it was a beautiful kind of fear. The kind that wakes you up, slaps your face, and demands to know who you are.... right then and there.... no deliberation.

I think a lot of people have the same experience, I think that is why there is this inexplicable camaraderie amongst the ""imports" as I call them. We all seem to get each other, if for no other reason than having to over come the journey. No matter how different it may have been, the end goal being the same..... you just have to live here.

Even today, 6 years later, I can't tell you why. It is certainly not an easy place to live. I think I have spent more in parking tickets than car payments, and my rent could have paid for a nice 4 bedroom in Grand Rapids by now..... But none of that seems to matter. I pay twice as much for a gallon of milk or gas than the rest of Illinois, I save up for 2 weeks to go out to dinner if I can get a table in 3 hours. . . . It takes me 45 minutes to drive 5 miles to work, then I come home to a hundred year old, drafty apartment that I can barely afford after trying to park my car for 30 minutes on a street that may or may not tow me by morning, depending on the date and position of the moon.

And I still think I am one of 3 million of the most fortunate people on this planet. So today, I feel the need to say thank you Chicago.

Thank you for kicking my ass.
Thank you for the friendships you built.
Thank you for granting me courage.
Thank you for making me cry in loneliness.
Thank you for encouraging me to love.
Thank you for showing me compassion and tolerance.
Thank you for sharing your culture.
Thank you for giving me inner strength.
Thank you for educating me.
Thank you for making me feel beautiful.
Thank you for welcoming me in.
Thank you for waking me up.
Thank you for protecting me.
Thank you for opening my eyes, and my heart.
Thank you for teaching me to fly.

And thank you for starting my life, whether I was ready or not.

Good night all, from my sweet home . . . .
-Cyn

And the 6 million dollar question is . . . . . .

How do you measure success?

What does it mean to you? Is it a paycheck... a car..... a house....the size of your diamond.... the title on your business card.. ...the college you went to, or your kids went to on your dime?
how do you measure success? that is the question on my mind tonight.

Mine is not a simple answer, and its not monetary, or even related to a career at all. On the other hand, maybe it is the simplest answer.... mine is not really measured at all. Things like money, cars, jobs, real estate....don't hold value to me. They are just things you CAN have, but not things you need to have.
Most people look at me and think I am so far behind. But the funny thing is, I look at them and think I am so far ahead.

Success has no price tag, or tax bracket, or karat weight..... you can't measure a laugh, or contentment, or that feeling of calm you have when you naturally wake up from a good nights sleep. Those are the things I use to measure my own success. Did I smile and laugh today? Did I make anyone else smile or laugh? Did I do my job and be kind to people? Did I fall asleep peacefully, without worry? That is all I need to decide.

I am a firm believer in the old "to each their own" saying, but I have a hard time believing anyone with a fancy car, big ring, or half million dollar condo is more successful than I. And yet, almost anyone faced with the comparison would tell you just that.

Since I am struggling to better explain myself, let's take a look at what my old friend Webster's has to say about success...... it says "the achievement of something desired, intended or attempted" So, in theory, if I headed out to the store to buy toilet paper, and came home with toilet paper, I had a successful day. That simple.

So why is it so hard for anyone to see that I am successful? I have a cupboard full of toilet paper.....just as I intended.

As always.... good times,
-Cyn