Six years ago today I moved to Chicago. This single event changed my life more than any other (except for the birth of my son, of course).
I had been wanting to move here for awhile. My son lives with his dad et al in the far west suburbs and I’d been commuting from Indianapolis to see him. That is not a short commute, and I-65 has to be the most boring stretch of highway this side of Kansas. I knew the mile marker number for every rest area, gas station, town, and point of interest. Yet, I kept delaying the move. I didn’t know a soul up here, except for my parents, and they lived in another suburb. Besides that, I’m as stubborn as a redheaded Irish Taurus can be and I wasn’t about to follow my ex up here, uh uh no way.
Then came September 11, 2001. On September 15 I drove up to Chicago, found a place with a view of the Sears Tower, and signed the lease with a move-in date of October 20. My parents didn’t even know I had been looking until I was already on my way back to Indy. I had to move to Chicago, and move here now. I was missing out on too much in my son’s life, and I was missing out on too much of my own.