A Letter to Chicago, part one

It’s 11:38PM as I’m writing this and it’s hard to sleep knowing what the future is bringing. I have feelings of excitement, anticipation, a little sadness and mostly nostalgia. Five years ago I was packing up my little college room in Lexington, KY to head to Chicago and start the dreams I’d been planning for years. I had just graduated college, planned to move in with my boyfriend in a couple months and didn’t have very much else planned. In June of 2015, Kollin and I moved into our 490 square foot apartment and felt like we had the world at our feet. I had finally moved to the place where my dreams didn’t feel limited, I could go after what I wanted and truly find the version of myself I always wanted to be.

Growing up in Kentucky was great, but ever since middle school I knew I always wanted more. I dreamed of adventures and exciting places to make memories. I wanted to travel the world, meet new kinds of people and immerse myself in different cultures. That first day in Chicago I couldn’t help but imagine the life we would make there, the people we would befriend, the experiences we would have and versions of ourselves we would become. Little did I know, it would be so much more than I could’ve dreamed of.

We spent that summer trying new things, meeting people and walking more than I thought humanly possible. Kollin didn’t start law school until September and I was still job hunting so we had three months to do whatever we wanted. We went to street festivals, ate cheap tacos for every single meal, walked the lakefront, shopped Michigan Avenue, made a little home out of our apartment and discovered the magic that Chicago offers. As the graduation savings dwindled and the air started to cool down we realized that life on our own wasn’t all fun and games.

We figured out how to use our radiator (don’t leave a laundry basket next to it if you don’t want it to melt overnight), learned the hard way to pay attention to stops on the L, figured out each others weird quirks and living habits, and budgeted how to live off of rice and spaghetti. But, as two kids in love who had just spent 3.5 years apart in long distance it was the best feeling just being together.

I eventually found a job, Kollin started school and we ventured into a new way of life. Sure, we had moments of struggle and learning curves with our new roles, but it was all worth it to leave the office or classroom and walk through The Loop at sunset to meet up for Riverside drinks or take the bus all the way across town to try the latest restaurant everyone was raving about. As we continued to grow and find more of ourselves in the city, we decided moving to the center of it was where we wanted to be.

After a year of 490 square feet, our new 800 square feet apartment in Streeterville seemed like we had arrived. We stayed in that (still little) place for two years, saved money, bought a corgi, made more friends and truly lived a city lifestyle. We didn’t own a car, walked everywhere and had endless opportunities for food, entertainment, and experiences at our fingertips. We spent summer nights at Movies in the Park, going clubbing on weekends and made our own family traditions. I was now on my second job, Kollin was finishing up law school and things were amazing. Not to mention, the Cubs won the World Series and we fell even deeper in love with the city, its people and culture.

In June 2017, the boy I met at 14, who took me to high school homecomings, spent 3.5 years loving me from a distance and survived 490 square feet together asked me to marry him at our favorite Chicago hideaway, the Lincoln Park Conservatory. Located right next to the zoo and the place we would escape to when work was too much or we need some relief from the never-ending car sounds, the moment was perfect. Years of love, hardship, laughter and hard work culminated in that moment in the city we’d worked so hard to be in. We headed back to our little apartment to find most of our family and friends yelling surprise when we arrived and spent the night celebrating on the rooftop terrace we called home. Our two lives had collided fully. Our Kentucky family and friends enjoyed the gifts of Chicago while celebrating the two people we’d become while living there.

We spent the next two years running around the city, keeping an on-going list of every restaurant we needed to try, museum exhibits we needed to see and saving money to attend as many Cubs games as possible. We moved again to Lincoln Park - a leading part in our love story - planned our wedding and finally felt like we could make our little condo our home. We would be there for years to come. Kollin graduated from law school, passed the bar, we both found new jobs and began settling into our life as 25 year olds in the city.

We’d walk around the neighborhood looking at townhouses we couldn’t afford, stopping into random cafes to try their croissants, took Wrigley to the dog beach and finally got a car. 2019 was the year of the wedding and we spent much of it working, planning, saving money and taking trips to Kentucky to bring the wedding to life. After each trip to Kentucky we would be driving into the city and would just take a moment to revel in the feeling of seeing the skyline after a few days away. Chicago had been home to us for almost four years at this point, but it took us being away for a lot of the year to truly feel like the city was home. We missed it while we were gone and began to actually feel like Chicagoans.

I could tell you what happened during the last three Cubs games, what train to take if you’re going to the West Loop and had a pretty amazing list of the best restaurants in Chicago when friends would ask where to have dinner while visiting. Kollin and I would meet up for lunch in the heart of downtown surrounded by high rises and crossed the middle of the street like true locals with no fear of being run over by a mountain of angry cab drivers. Our southern accents somewhat faded and we’d become pros at dressing for winter temperatures. We survived a polar vortex (negative 50 and 70+ mph winds), and had finally reached the luxury of taking our car to the grocery store rather than walking 6 blocks with a cart and an armful of bags.

My blog and Instagram became flooded with cityscape pictures, amazing meals at Michelin Star-rated restaurants, backdrops of downtown locations and city lifestyle tips. In September of 2019 we got married and went on the most romantic honeymoon to Italy. While sad to be leaving Europe, we were excited to get back to the city and get back into our routine. The next few months were one of the best times to experience the city - the holidays. The beginning of fall weather, leaves changing in Lincoln Park, baseball playoffs, football season and fall fashion brought us right back to why we loved living here. Thanksgiving with family came and Christmas soon followed; A truly magical time in the city filled with lights, snow and our tradition of seeing the Millennium Park Christmas tree after a late night tour of The Art Institute. January-March is usually the hardest time to be a Chicagoan with a slight glimmer of hope in February with Restaurant Week. The first week of March, we planned a quick family vacation to our family’s Florida home to escape the cold and get some much needed relaxation. Two days before leaving Florida to go back to Chicago, the world shut down as Coronavirus spread quickly.

Our flights home were cancelled four times, Midway airport’s Southwest terminal was completely closed due to staff outbreaks and the news was filled with horrible and scary information. We decided to stay another week until things calmed down. A week turned into two, the cases grew and Chicago became one of the things we never thought it would: desolate.

Businesses closed, streets were deserted, people were dying and losing their jobs. Anger grew and violence became a common reaction. We decided to lockdown with family in Florida until quarantine was over. March bled into April, and April turned into May as we didn’t know what the state of the world would become. We watched the number of cases and deaths soar in Chicago and wondered when we would ever return home and were filled with the feeling that we couldn’t do more to support our city from Florida. It was the first time that our little condo felt like a cage to us and somewhere we didn’t want to be. We were so thankful to be with family in a beautiful place and not confined to our condo alone. We know many others didn’t have that luxury. Chicago began to have negative connotations whenever we talked about it. We started to prefer the slower pace, appreciate the quiet moments and simpler things in this way of living.

We watched, like the rest of the world, the horrible atrocities of police brutality and the murder of George Floyd. We were sent videos of Chicago on fire because of the anger and hurt. We talked with friends in the city about how they were scared to leave their apartment due to the violence. We didn’t know what we would be returning home to in two weeks. On June 6th we traveled back to the city as cases seemed to be plateauing and on the drive in from the airport we saw the skyline we called home for the first time in over three months. I cried knowing it wasn’t the same. We were home, but everything was different…

Part two coming soon.