Yesterday we bought ourselves a new bed at Marshall Fields, aka Macy’s. One year ago yesterday we officially arrived in Chicago, newly married, unemployed and a bit shell-shocked.
As we wandered through the enormous furniture department of the State Street store, now shot through with swaths of Macy’s red instead of Marshall Fields hunter green, I kept thinking back one year. Renate has a razor-sharp memory, and she played along when I asked, “what were we doing now?” We were at Jewel Osco (our new grocery store) after stopping at Blockbuster to pick up a few movies. We were at Trader Joe’s to buy cheese. We were at 7-Eleven to buy beer.
Clearly Day One was all about survival.
I’ve been playing the ‘one year ago’ game for weeks now. One year and two weeks ago, my then-fiancee Renate and I packed our belongings into a Penske truck and drove from Boston to Chicago. The trip took two days, both of which were saturated with rain. To keep me calm as I white-knuckled the waterlogged drive, Renate read articles aloud from Vanity Fair.
After unloading the truck into the second floor of a two-flat building, we returned to Boston with two weeks worth of clothes. One week later, we tied the knot on a day warmer than we’d hoped, in a church with no air conditioning. Following four days on Nantucket — during which time our respective leases symbolically expired — we chased the cat into a mesh carry-on kennel and flew to our new hometown.
People worried we’d bit off more than we could chew. During our ‘marriage prep’ sessions, our pastor noted with raised eyebrow that we were going through three of life’s four major changes all at once. (The fourth is having children.) Though she was happy to have us move closer, Renate’s mom at one point suggested we stay in Boston another six months to look for jobs in Chicago.
But we had a band-aid mentality about the process; we’d do it all at once and get it over with. Why find a place in Boston when we’d only need to find a new apartment in Chicago and move — again?
So we pulled the band-aid off and waited for things to feel normal. But one sets down some decent roots during six-plus years in a city, and we felt like strangers in a strange land after the move.
Now the band-aid has been off for one year plus, and things finally feel familiar. One year ago today, we were unpacking moving boxes and keeping an eye out for the cat, who takes a while to warm up to new places. She would not show her face for another two days, and to some degree, we knew how she felt. Now, though, she’s sprawled on the guest room bed, comfortable, at home.