We were staying at the Renaissance Hotel in downtown Chicago. We had just flown in the night before, and stayed in Oak Brook for Drew's job interview. My husband brought with him a shirt that required cuff links, but forgot the cuff links. We discovered this in the Atlanta airport. No problem, we thought, we can buy some at the airport...alas, they only had $400 options! Which wasn't going to happen, so we asked for sewing kits from our hotel, and took the little flimsy safety pins and made "cuff links" out of them. After being married for 3 and a half months at the time, that was truly the first time I felt married, the morning of his interview, in a strange hotel room, literally pinning his shirt together. We felt like such a team! And that was a good start, because over the last year we've had to lean on each other for everything - and it is such a wonderful feeling, I count my blessings everyday that I am married to a man I admire, respect, and think the world of. Oh, and he can make me laugh a lot too :)
Anyways, back to this time last year...while Drew did his day long interview, I took the train into the city. I'll never forget how full that train was, and I had to stand for the hour ride in - a lady would not move her suitcase so I could sit down, and I remember thinking that was an ominous sign! When I got to the city, I walked, and walked, and walked - I was meeting a realtor to show us apartments, and I found my way kind of ok, but in the end I think he ended up picking me up from where I was, I never did make it to the office. The city was so packed, the line to Chick-fil-a was around the corner on this Friday afternoon. I wasn't sure how anyone managed to fit it in their lunch hour.
Riely, our realtor showed me a few places, that weren't really what I was looking for. And a couple I really liked. None ended up working out, which was probably for the better cause we really like where we are (so much so, we just re-signed, even though we had signed the lease without ever seeing it! Thank you Google Maps!)
Drew had a really grueling day of interviewing, followed by having to drive into the city, and drop off our luggage, and pick me up so we could drop off the rental car, and come back to the city. What a long day. I don't remember much about the ride in or out, but I do remember him having to do about 5 circles around Wacker to get me because he couldn't figure out where I was. When we took the train back in, neither of us really spoke the whole time. He had been offered the job. Now we had to decide if we were going to leap or not.
Let's be really, really clear - it would have been so much easier to stay in Florida.We love our family and friends, and home. I wasn't sold on the move. We went to a place I'd seen near the hotel, called Dick's Last Resort, it had tropical lights, and was on the Chicago River, it looked relaxing, and like a good place to contemplate our future. We didn't realize it was a gimmicky bar where they're rude to you on purpose...it was bad, I was so stressed I almost cried! I will never.ever.go back there!
The next morning Drew wanted to sleep, and I remember looking out the window at the River, and the people below, and thought, if we move here, Drew will have a job, and I won't right away. I need to be comfortable living here and doing things on my own. I am still convinced if I hadn't gone for a walk that morning that we would not be here today. But, I walked along the River Walk, down to Millennium Park, and got breakfast from Panera, and took it to the Bean statue. It was so beautiful and peaceful with the boats rocking in the harbor. I kept jumping every time someone would run by me, thinking they were going to mug me! (Thank you Grandma and Mom for raising me to be afraid of everything!)
While sitting by the Bean, I called my Mom and told her, I think we're going to move to Chicago. She thought we had nothing to lose by trying it out, and I talked to her my whole walk back to the hotel. When I got there I jumped on Drew to wake him up, and said, "let's do it, let's move!" We had a lot of well meaning people tell us we were crazy (a lot still do), but we knew this was what we'd been dreaming about for years. We flew home on Sunday night, and Drew had a trip to the Bahamas on Monday morning for work. I told him there was no way we could wait till Wednesday or Thursday when he returned to give our notice, our decisiveness was to weak and we would have talked ourselves out of it. I said the only way to do it was to tell work on Monday morning and make it real - I still can't believe we wrapped our lives up there in 2 and half weeks. What a whirlwind!
And that my friends is the story of how we moved here. A lot of dreaming, determination, luck, safety pins, and a caper. (Oh we didn't mention the caper? During lunch at a nice restaurant Drew spilled a caper on his shirt, and one of his interviewers asked him if it was a bug on his shirt :)
While we'd been looking at apartments that weekend the Chicago Air and Water Show was happening. It was so cool to see the planes floating in mid-air, and hear them above us. We were bummed though because we were so busy with the details that we couldn't go watch. Which brings us full circle to this year - and how tomorrow we'll get to see the Air Show! Happy weekend, happy beginnings!
