Chicago and Independence

Chicago and Independence

The Bean

Chicago.

Beautiful skyline. Great food, great people, so much to do!

Oh and the Food! 

Portillos, Salt and Pepper diner, Ann Sather restaurant, Deuces.

Yum!

What more can I say about Chicago?

It was pure joy! Pure fun!

Great to see family and friends and to form great memories.

Ballgame and Comedy club with a friend.  

High school reunion with old friends. Making new friends. Lots of laughs to be had!

Hanging out with my crazy family and their antics! Everyone is all over the place! 

Work, work, work, play, play, play!

It was a beautiful, sunny cool afternoon today.

For a brief moment, as I stood at the Redline train station waiting to catch the next train back to my aunt’s house, I felt an exhilarating rush come over me.

As the breeze blew through that upper deck overlooking the city before me, I suddenly felt liberated, 

And I re-analyzed where my life was at that moment.

Freedom.

But no one else seems to see that I am free. 

That I am an adult woman who can live her life the way she chooses. 

That I can in fact make my own life decisions without anyone else telling me what I should or shouldn’t do.

"Are you trying to get revenge?”, my aunt asked me.

What? What does that even mean?

I’m way beyond that. 

I just want to move on with my life and heal these wounds.

No I am not trying to get revenge. 

I am trying to be a normal person.

What does that mean anyway? -- to be normal?

I think I’ve lived my whole life thinking I was normal and now realize I am far from it. 

Well I think we are all far from “normal” in many ways.

But I do just want to feel normal again.
I want to be happy again. I want to smile again. I want to feel Love again.

And my uncle said, “You are a free bird now!”

And yes he is right.

I am free.

But everyone else in this world is worried about me. Not that my uncle isn’t, but he gets it.

He gets where I am at in life.

Maybe it’s because of all the Beatles songs he’s listened to.

Or the weed he smoked while having a transforming experience listening to Pink Floyd and their timeless music that rings true decade after decade.

Or that fact that he knows we are on this earth for a finite amount of time.

Time, by Pink Floyd. 

He made me listen to the lyrics. 

It was chilling.
Because life really is just that. Our time here on Earth is brief.
And it seems that never before was I so aware of this fact and its finality.

This is It!

We only get one chance.

One chance to make it right. One chance to make it count and to say we did our Best!

We have to make the best of it. The most of it.

And I can’t predict where any of this may go.

I can only hope that once more there will be a rainbow at the end of the road waiting for me to come upon it and embrace it.

So where does all this leave me now in this very moment?
I think about all the chatter in my head.
What they are all telling me to do. My friends, my family.
I know they have my best intentions at heart.

But my heart is fighting all of it. It's screaming inside.

It wants to stand on top of a cliff and scream as loud as it can and say NO!
Say NO to the world! Say NO to being hurt!
Say no to rejection! Say no to losing love.

The rest of them, all the women in my life -- well they just want to mother me. Because they are all mothers.
They have all been through those hardships, those heartaches, or watched their children go through them, and they don’t want me to get hurt. 

I get it.

As I observed the relationships around me this weekend, I realized how warped some relationships are - whether those relationships are between family members, friends or lovers.
How can we achieve normalcy in our lives and our relationships?

And I realize my relationship with my husband was so twisted and so warped.
We would sit next to each other and stare into the vast emptiness in front of us.
Our lips frozen. Our hearts frozen.

There was nothing there in the space between us but emptiness.

I didn't know how to bridge that gap.
I didn't know what to say to make it better. To make our relationship better. To make it work.
I think I felt I was going to die trying, and so I wasn't go to give up.

I realize how warped our perceptions of people and their actions are.

And how warped it is that we think we can judge them and tell them what to do with their lives.

Because I realize I have no right to judge ANYONE.

I don't think I can even judge my ex-husband. As much as I think I hate him for hurting me.
I don't know where he's been on this journey of life. I don't know where his heart is.
I do know he is hurting just as much as me, but for different reasons.

I realize too that No One has a right to judge me either.

Not my family, not my friends, not my colleagues, not strangers.

But yet we judge each other every single day. We are judged by others every single day.

And I felt hurt, felt anger, and resentment when she said that to me,

That I was trying to get revenge.

Because it was far from the truth.

I just want to be happy.

Isn’t that what everyone wants? Isn’t that what we all deserve?

Why can’t people just let me be happy? Why can’t people just leave me alone and let me do just that? 

Why can’t people leave me alone to find my own way?

Because life is complicated. 

Because everyone wants to give you advice and tell you how you should live your life.

They tell me, “I’ve been there. And trust me. You don’t want to go there. You’re not ready.”

Can you leave me alone already?

I am a grown woman. I can make my own decisions.
Maybe I'm not ready.
But how do I know when I will be ready?

I know that life is about taking risks.
I know that I may fall flat on my face, but if I do, at least I can say that I did it knowingly, willingly, on my own accord knowing that the outcome may not be a good one.

It may turn out that everyone will be right, that I will fail miserably, that I'll have to hear those dreaded words,
"We told you so".

"But you didn't want to listen to wisdom and experience."
Maybe they are right that I should play it safe.
Because if you take less risk, you won't fall as hard

But I'd rather travel the harder road, and 

say that at least I tried. At least I did it my way.
And anyway, now it's too late to turn back.
I've put myself out there
My heart is exposed and vulnerable.

But if we don’t love, if we don’t sacrifice and take a chance, how can we achieve something that could potentially be great and maybe even fantastic?

Sigh.

My chest tightened up again. 

All that anxiety that was briefly gone for a few wonderful, carefree hours during those moments when I stood on the upper deck of the train station feeling the breeze in my hair and earlier during the run in the park by my aunt’s house earlier that afternoon where I watched the doe eat her evening snack of leaves and then also saw 2 bucks grazing nearby — 

well it was a moment of serenity that I hadn’t experienced in a long time.

As I peered onto that murky lake covered in leaves and debris, a vision of my dog Sadie suddenly appeared before me, and I smiled and felt calm.
My heart felt warm and safe because I knew she was there with me.

God, I loved that dog. As disgusting as she was when she ate dog poo or dead animals, or vomited or diarrhead all over the house,
She was PURE LOVE.

And so I smiled as I watched the deer, and I ran back home on that beautiful summer evening feeling good.

I went home to get ready, hoping to see him one last time to say Goodbye.

I remember hearing his humming and singing during the game.

I liked it. 

It was warm, reassuring— the sounds of his voice wrapped me in a comforting feeling.

And it’s the little seemingly insignificant but oh so Significant things I will hold on to.
The laughter, the jokes, the Smiles, his soft touch, the soft kisses. 

I can only hope that they meant as much to him as they did to me,
And that maybe one day, they will come back and bring a smile to my face once more.

Every time I hear the music, I think about him and it brings a smile to my face!

Does anyone think that maybe I’m just trying to move on my life? 

Trying to reach a state of normalcy again?

That I just want to be happy again?

Then I try to take a deep breath and let it go.

The guilt was still buried deep in my chest.
Because every time I try to do what my heart wants, what my heart tells me is right,

Everyone else tells me it’s wrong. That I'm wrong.

So what is right? What is the right thing to do?
What should I do?

But I have let that guilt carry me for too long.
It has weighed me down like a heavy chain my whole life and through every major life decision for the last 30 years. 

It was time to let it go.
It was time to drop that heavy chain into the bottom of the ocean and let my mermaid tail carry me to the shore and into the sunset.

It was time to be Brave and time to exercise Free Will.

“Be rational” they tell me.

Well let me tell you one thing.

Love and being rational are complete opposites. 

So reconcile that one for me.

This time I want to do what feels right.
I want to do what makes me happy.
And this time, I'm not sorry for doing what I want.

And I know that means I am taking a big risk. 

But there are no guarantees in this life.

When you put everything on the line, you can’t be certain what the outcome will be.
You can't be certain whether or not it will turn out to be in your favor.

And maybe that is why people like to gamble.

Because after all life is a gamble.
Even if you play by the rules, You can lose everything.
You can be faced with nothing but disappointment.
And you can kick and scream and say it's not fair.
But that does not change anything.

So even if I fall flat on my face. Even if disappointment is waiting for me on the other side to say, “I told you so” — 

I know I need to do this. For nobody else, but myself

I need to make my own decisions in life without anyone else dictating to me about how to make those decisions.

And I thought about how I haven’t laughed so hard in years. I literally laughed for 2 days straight. 

I laughed so hard that my stomach hurts. 

I thought about the comedy club, my friends. 

At least there was laughter. 

That makes it all better! 

And I discovered that I am actually funny! 

Go figure! I'm a comedian?

So I think this blog will be a turning point.
This trip was a turning point.

No more sadness.

I want humor in my life.  The ringing sounds of laughter!!!
Which are oh so great!

Because life is too harsh sometimes, too difficult, and if we can’t laugh about it, what else can we do?

And I realize I don’t have to explain myself to anyone. 

Because no one understands what I have been through.

No one knows the emotional state I am in at this very moment.

They just all think I’m not ready.

And my parents think they know the type of person I should be with.

Because after all isn’t love and especially marriage a calculated formula?

Marry someone from the same class as you.
Marry a professional. A doctor, a lawyer, an engineer.

Marry someone with the same level of education and background as you.

Marry someone whose family matches our family.

Those are the things that are important.
Because if you don't marry the "right" person, they tell me that down the road,
"Your children will not value education. 

Your future children will have problems."

They will not understand the importance and value of education, they will not respect you or their elders
Your children will be screw ups, they will fail at life, and therefore you will be a failure.

And so this is the way your life will be. This will be the outcome of your "poor choices." Do you want that?

This is reality, they tell me.

Really? 

Because I did all those things and I ended up with a scary person.

With a person who hurt me. With a person who didn’t make me feel safe,

And I didn’t deserve that.

But I was too scared to walk away. 

I was too scared to admit that my relationship was doomed, because I knew what the consequences would be if I had to admit that to myself.

I would be alone.

Worse that that,

that dream — my dream of a perfect life and a perfect marriage-- would be shattered forever.

That perfect wedding, those perfect vows, that "perfect" marriage, that perfect person whom I had envisioned would make me the happiest person on earth — that person who was marrying me and whom I was marrying— would all be gone with a blink of an eye.

That beautiful dream would all just evaporate into thin air.

What does that mean anyways? To be perfect?
And why in the world do we want Perfection?
It seems like we'd always be setting ourselves up for failure if we only
want perfection and nothing less than that.

Because maybe the beauty in life is in its imperfections.
That person is Not perfect.
I am Not perfect.
My life is Not perfect.
A relationship with the one you love may Not be perfect

But that's okay.

And I guess I now need to learn how to be okay with that.

But I wanted my life to be perfect. I wanted my marriage to be perfect.
I am a Virgo and so by definition, I am a perfectionist!
I always have been.

And so I told myself, that I couldn’t do that to myself.  I couldn't let my marriage and my life fall apart.
"I worked too hard for this," I told myself.
I didn't work this hard to attain all of this, just to let it all go.

So I hung on for dear life until the rope crumbled beneath my very hands and I had nothing left to hold on to.

I had to let go. 

I had to let myself take the plunge off that very scary cliff into the Unknown,

the vast dark Abyss that was below me and would swallow me whole.

What would come after that? I asked myself.

There was no answer. 

Maybe it was just too terrifying to face what that answer could be.

Somewhere in this universe I know somehow, someday I will be okay.

I just have to have Faith.

And I realize that is ALL I have to hold on to now.

Every day, I feel like I am falling or might be falling.
But miraculously someone is always there to catch me.
Someone is always there to tell me it's going to be okay.
That I am going to be okay.

They help me up and dust me off, and I keep going.

I do not know what tomorrow will bring.

Whether it will bring more sorrow or maybe more joy this time.

But faith is all I really have right now, right this second to get me through each and every day.
I tell myself I need to Believe.
I need to Believe there will come a better day. That there will be a better tomorrow.

But Wow!, the memories from my trip would be fantastic!
And it showed me that if there is a God, he is great!
He is letting me experience life again and all the Wonderful and Beautiful things that Life can offer us.

I love this city and everything it has given me these past few wonderful days.

So thank you Chicago! :) Until next time.

Your Song - Elie Goulding

Stay with Me - Sam Smith