The grass is always greener......

I had an interesting conversation with a friend the other night….. talking about the differences in small town life vs. big city living. I often think about where I come from and I miss it… I miss the familiarity, the comfort in always knowing someone, the consistencies in daily life and your surroundings…. They somehow can stamp out loneliness, having nothing to do with anyone else. Almost as if the town itself is a companion of sorts, a good old friend that you can count on. The city isn’t like that. You can have dinner at your favorite restaurant, and go back 5 days later and it’s gone and has become a Baby Gap or a Starbucks. You can walk the same streets and frequent the same stores and never see the same face twice. The buildings change, the businesses change, the landscape changes…. Its moving faster than anyone or anything in it, and it won’t stop of slow down for any reason. If you can’t keep up, or at least survive it, it will eat you alive.

My friend mentioned how great it must be to meet new people every day, and have your pick of anyone to date….. all the while he’s talking and I’m thinking to myself… “I have never felt so lonely in my entire life as I have living in this city of 3 million people”. I have never had a harder time making friends, dating, building professional relationships….. people in a city are just different…..or maybe it’s me that’s just different. I have wondered about it for almost 7 years now, I can’t figure out what it is. Although I love this city, I certainly was not born to live in it without digging deep down to find the emotional fortitude to weather loneliness. I’ve had to completely re-evaluate companionship, and exactly how much personal interaction I need to feel healthy and sane and part of this planet. I don’t succeed in that too often, and the alien in me takes over and I feel a million miles from anyone that knows or loves me. And when that happens….. I venture out into the concrete and steel and take in the character of this city that makes my heart pound in my chest. So I guess in writing this…. I realize that Chicago has saved me from time to time. It has become my friend, and kept me from running to familiar places, and made me whole on the days I feel so empty it’s difficult to breathe. And the best part of that relationship is the city can’t leave me….I get to be in that relationship until I am good and ready to move on…...

with that thought.... I leave you to your Thursday.....
thanks for visiting.

-Cyn