I opened the invite for Maya’s 30th birthday, and put a hold on my Google calendar. “Chicago for the weekend?” read the invite, which I sent to Doug’s inbox, to which he immediately responded, “Accept.”
Alright, cool, we’re doing this.
After some back and forth, we decided to make it a weekend family trip. While the trip would have been significantly easier with just the two of us, we hadn’t been back as a family since we drove away with our U-Haul packed 7 months prior, and thought it’d be a nice opportunity for our girls to visit, too.
We didn’t want a weekend filled with tourist attractions or packed agendas.
We simply wanted to spend time checking out our old stomping grounds and visiting with some of our favorite people. I wasn’t sure if the girls would even remember Chicago, but I still had this feeling that it was an important trip for us to take for general closure. I can’t really explain it in any other way than that.
The night before we left, I still hadn’t packed. So, naturally, I procrastinated further by pulling out my computer. (Ha!) I started going down memory lane, clicking through photos and videos from the first years of Gracie and Jo’s lives.
I watched that time when Gracie practiced walking near the lakefront, with the skyline reflecting on the water. Also, I smiled at that time that Josephine squealed happily when we put her in a swing, gently swaying next to her sister. Looked at the family photos we took on an abnormally warm winter day, as the sun was setting one night in Lincoln Park. So many selfies from little family
Countless memories, inviting me in as I scrolled through my library. All with Chicago as our big, beautiful, crazy, consuming backdrop.
It was our home. Where we went to grad school, lived our twenties to their fullest, adulted with our best friends, could barely afford studio apartments, got engaged, strolled the streets as newlyweds, and raised our family for those precious first years.
So many life moments and milestones happened in that city, and while reflecting on it, I couldn’t help be overcome with emotion.
For the first time since leaving, I missed it.
I’m not sure if it was because of this impromptu trip down memory lane, the fact that we were returning as a family for the first time since we left, or that I finally allowed myself to slow down enough to actually reflect. But, there those feelings were. I really missed it.
I think that missing something can mean different things depending on the context, so I’d like to clarify my feelings at that moment. It wasn’t this, “I want to move back and I’m regretting our decision to move” feeling, but rather a, “Wow, I loved our time there. Look at all that we did. That city was really great to us.” Less sadness, more reflecting. Still, when it boils down to it, missing. Does that make sense?
I was remembering a time in life that held so much. A majority of my twenties. The beginning of our family. And for the first time, it almost felt like I was…I don’t know…grieving the loss of an era.
I sat there for a bit and just kind of….felt it. Sat in it. Reflected.
I impulsively even shared these feelings on Instagram. Truth be told – I was a little embarrassed for sharing that moment in hindsight. But, so many of your messages reaffirmed that those feelings were refreshing to hear and even helped some of you feel better about things you were feeling sad about. So, hey, ego aside…if that moment of rawness was able to help some of you, it was worth it.
Ultimately, I do believe that being sad sometimes is a very real part of life. One that perhaps doesn’t get discussed, or shared, enough. Perhaps because it’s uncomfortable. But – here’s the thing – it’s okay to grieve, to reflect, to miss. No one is all sunshine and rainbows all the time — even the happiest people! Especially with something as big as moving, which is one of the biggest life stressors.
(All that said, I do want to note that while I believe sadness is okay to feel, there is a point that may indicate you need help. If you feel it’s becoming overwhelming, or beyond something that’s normal, I encourage you to reach out to a trusted loved one and open up/talk.)
It’s amazing to me, actually, that I didn’t really feel sad about our move, or miss Chicago, up until that moment.
I’ve been thinking about notion that a lot since, actually. I think perhaps I’m doing too much…going too fast…and need to just let myself be a bit more. You know? But that’s a topic for another day.
Back to the move.
I missed it, and was beyond excited to return.
So, how was it when we returned to Chicago?
It was so wonderful!
Here’s a run down of all that we did.
Friday night, we stayed with Kelly and Mitch, who we of course talk with all the time but we hadn’t seen since we moved 7 months ago. Mitch and Doug caught up, the girls played with Emma, and Kelly and I went to Maya’s 30th birthday party. At Maya’s party, I got to see and catch up with a ton of old coworkers and friends. After we went home, Kelly, Mitch, Doug and I chatted until 2 am.
Saturday, we went to brunch at Southport Grocery. I literally had been salivating at thinking of some of the dishes I missed, ha! We used to live in Roscoe Village, and would walk to Southport multiple times a week to eat. It was our old stomping grounds, so it was fun to be back there.
After brunch, we drove by our old apartment.
We smiled as we drove by, and talked about our favorite memories. And while we reminisced about all the good, we also kept laughing at how much life has gotten logistically easier. Things like, “Oh my gosh how did we live in such a small space?!” or, “Can you believe we walked up those flights of stairs with two kids every day?!”
We then watched the Michigan State game with our best friends from college. A crew of us – all who still live in the city besides Doug and I – gathered to catch up, hang out, eat, cheer on our alma mater, and play with our kiddos. Doug met our best friend’s new baby for the first time. Our buddies kept saying how big Gracie and Jo have gotten. I don’t think I actually watched a minute of the actual game!
After, we drove to the suburbs to have a sleepover at Dave and Liz’s house. We ate pizza, hung with the kids, caught up, and chatted by the fire for hours.
So much quality time spent with some of the people we miss dearly. I only wish we had more time to see more people and do our favorite things! I guess we’ll just have to plan another trip soon. 😉
We left happy, content, and ready to return home to Michigan.
Looking back, I do think this trip acted like the closure we didn’t know we needed.
Everything about the move, and 2018 in general, was such a massive whirlwind. We were, in a lot of ways, just trying to stay afloat and remain strong — for ourselves and for our little family — among all the changes happening.
I think about it now in hindsight, and am amazed.
In one year, we made the decision to move from Chicago to Detroit, committed to being involved with a home renovation project, packed up our apartment, said goodbye to our friends, made the actual move, adjusted to living in my parent’s basement for 4 months while the home renovation was completed, worked hard on the renovation to help complete it, moved into our home, and quit our jobs, started new ones, launched my new business, and threw some travel in the mix throughout. Add in the countless decisions involved with bringing this all to life — Where will the girls go to school? What color tile for the bathrooms? What furniture do we need to order? — and I see now that we were juggling masters. Not to pat ourselves on the back too much, but really…whoa.
Thank God I have a partner like Doug.
We were both kind of like two sailors on a ship, trying to anchor ourselves in big waves. He was hoisting the sails and I was steering. One with the wind, navigating ahead. I don’t even know if those analogies makes sense because I don’t know how to sail, but you get what I mean. WE WERE BASICALLY FRICKING PIRATES.
Well done, my love.
Anyways.
That’s how I felt, and feel. There’s so much more to it all, but I do think this summarizes things nicely and – wow – this blog post is becoming long.
On Instagram, I asked for you to send in questions that you had about our move. There were some really thought-provoking things to address. Here they are, answered to the best of my ability. Please let me know if you have added questions within the comments below – I’m happy to answer them!
What do you miss most about Chicago?
The community. We had such a great group of friends there — from old buddies who made the move to Chicago with us, to new buddies we met through things like blogging. We became like family because none of us had family around. There’s a closeness you get with the people surrounding you when you’re in that type of a situation.
I also miss little, everyday things. All the parks. The restaurants. Being able to walk to all our favorite places. Running along the lakefront. The markets on weekends. The skyline. The feeling of accomplishment I had while walking into work, in some of the tallest high rises in the city, because of the grandness of it all.
What are you happy you left behind?
The endless traffic. Circling the blocks to find parking spots. The noise. Never being comfortable with my girls running around barefoot on grass. The expenses of city life.
What have been the biggest adjustments in going from city to suburb life?
The pace of life. Things are just slower and easier in the suburbs. (Which is exactly what we wanted!) Everything from grocery shopping, to getting the mail, to the stillness at night.
One of my biggest adjustment areas may make me sound crazy, but it was very real! I actually felt unsafe in the suburbs at first. It’s so quiet. There’s fewer people. It all bothered me at first. Every house has ground access and a door/windows to walk right up to, which sounds odd to note but I’d lived in high rises or walk-ups for 10 years and was always multiple floors above the ground, which provided a safety net I didn’t even realize I got used to. Neighbors don’t live across the hall here, which means that life is a little more isolated. I’d say that adjusting to this feeling of suburb vs. city life was the biggest change for me.
Another big adjustment area has been getting used to driving everywhere. In Chicago, there were days on end when we didn’t even see our cars. We didn’t need to, because everything was right there, or we could easily take public transportation. Here, you need a car. Which sometimes is nice because, yes, things are easier when you have a car. But, we actually really loved walking everywhere, which is something that we genuinely miss being able to do.
How did you know you were ready to move back?
This is complex for me.
There was never this moment of absolute clarity. It was just always something we knew we wanted to do eventually, to be near family while raising a family. But, we were never clear on when the right timing would be.
I’d say that as our family grew — as Grace, and then Josephine, started walking and getting more active — it became more and more clear to us. It just eventually felt like the right thing to do. To have our girls grow up near family, be able to run around in a backyard, to have more space to grow, were all things we wanted for them and for us.
Our current house was the big catalyst. Committing to living there meant that we were finally saying, “Let’s make this happen.” Once we committed, we were focused on sorting through all the details to make it happen! The fact that our house was being renovated meant that we had lots of time to plan and figure out all the nuances, which was great, but I don’t think all that time was necessary. I think sometimes in life, when there’s something that feels right and you know you want to do, diving in is also helpful.
To us, deciding when and where to move came down to our personal priorities.
What did we want from our location? Our home itself? From life? We loved the city so much, and if we didn’t have kids I think we’d likely still be there. But ultimately, we wanted to be near family as we raised our children. We also wanted to save more, to be able to buy our own house eventually, and to live in more space than an apartment. We saw how much was happening in Detroit and were excited about it. All those priorities outweighed any nerves or uncertainties about leaving the life we knew and had built in Chicago.
I talked a lot about our experience with deciding to move in this post. One of the lines that sticks out to me even now is this: “For us, what was once a metropolis that held a dream became one that feels like a nuisance. I can’t pin-point exactly when it happened, but living here has lost a little of its luster; we haven’t done it all, but we no longer feel like we need to.” It was how I felt then, and it’s how I feel now!
Are you making new friends? How?
This was, by far, the most common question I received!
Truth be told, I wish I was making more new friends than I have. I’ve actually found it hard to meet new people here and build a community. But I believe this to be more a reflection of myself than anything else.
Overall, it comes down to the fact that I haven’t been great at putting myself out there.
Life is so busy, and what little free time we do have is typically spent with our family or good friends who live in the area. Doug works long hours, I’m trying hard to build a business, and we prioritize time with our girls whenever possible. So attending networking events, or going to more dinners or social outings, has been a challenge for us. We have great intentions, but when the nights and weekends come, we’re typically like….“Wanna Netflix and chill?”
That said. I do think it’s important to get ourselves out there more and network. And, I feel like I have the foundation to do that.
Coming to a new city/scene is super tough, but I’m trying to remember that being uncomfortable isn’t always bad, growth happens when you put yourself out there, and I’ve done it before. I came to Chicago knowing almost no one, and left with so many new, amazing, lifelong friendships in my life. From meeting people like Arin or Maya through work, to developing friendships through my grad school program, I know what it takes to meet new friends. (Did you know Kelly and I met at a blogging event? We started chatting and hit it off, and the rest was history!)
You need to be open, put yourself out there, and continuously make efforts toward building that friendship.
Determine a niche — anything from blogging, to music, to yoga — and become involved with that community. Attend events. Go alone, and challenge yourself to talk to new people. You may not connect with some, and that’s okay. Follow up with those who you gravitated toward. Invite them out. Don’t worry if they don’t respond or your outreach goes ignored — it just means they weren’t a good fit for your tribe anyways. Say yes to invites. Have fun!
It does takes time and effort, and it’s not easy. Making new friendships is a true commitment! Which is so much easier said than done, especially with a family.
Putting myself out there more is something I definitely want to work on more this year. Though not as frequent as I would hope, I’ve attended some networking events and have reached out/invited people to coffee since we moved back, of which I’ve met some amazing people! I know I need to continue to prioritize this. The Detroit community is one that I’m passionate about and am eager to be a deeper part of.
How have you navigated learning the ropes of an entire new city?
Ugh. I honestly don’t feel like I have yet.
I thought I knew Detroit because I grew up around here. But what I’ve found now that we’re back is that the city has changed immensely. I have so much to learn, do, and explore. This is one of the things I’m most looking forward to in the future — really getting to know the city and developing my “Favorite spots.” Learning more about the culture here – which is so different from Chicago’s — and becoming a true member of this community.
To continue learning about the city, I’m simply immersing myself in it more. I’m always making note of new places to see, do, and experience. I work downtown almost every week. Our family is downtown every weekend, getting to know it better. Doug and I committed to having our girls know and appreciate the city, so we’ve been loving taking them down there and learning about it as a family. It’s a huge, and truthfully very complex, place that’s full of really amazing energy. We’ve only scratched the surface, but we’re eager to experience more!
In closing, I do believe that we’re very much still adjusting with it all.
We’ve navigated a lot with this move, but we’re still figuring it all out. We feel nice and settled in our new home, but have so many projects, goals, and things to work toward, in life and professionally. It’s been a wild and fun experience, with so much growth, so far!
By the way, this post has been a nice reflection journey for me. When it comes down to it, I’m a very average person who simply enjoys sharing life with you all; the fact that there’s a little audience reading this is humbling. So thank you, as always, for coming here. I hope that posts like this can help you in some way shape or form — whether you’re moving, or just adjusting to a new change in general!
PS – Here was our moving announcement, where I dove into all our reasons why we decided to move + Here’s the post I wrote about how we were feeling right before we actually left. xx
