They are precious, they are mine and they will never change. But the one thing that will not change and that no one can ever take away from me are the memories I have of growing up and living in that wonderful city. That’s just a simple fact and fighting it is senseless. But why should it? No matter what you do or where you live, live moves on. The difference is that I have accepted that life moves on and that Chicago will never be the same. The difference is that I live in Colorado, I love Colorado and I have no intention of leaving Colorado. The difference this time is that I know that in all likelihood I will never live in Chicago again – and I am at peace with that. So why do I want to subject myself to the sad fact that things will be so different from when I lived there and that life went on without me? And now I hear they have a casino in Rosemont. Last I heard it got bulldozed in the middle of the night and park land left in its place. Am I ready for that? The last time I was in Chicago Miegs Field was still there. If I go there this time it will be Macys. I mean, what happened to Marshall Fields? The last time I was in Chicago I visited Marshall Fields on State Street. Why am I so excited to go back? What fascination does the city of Chicago still hold? I know what I will find. I have not been back there for over 8 years. The city I had lived in all of my life was now not my city anymore.
Our neighbors of twenty plus years were either gone or deceased.
The houses on Oakdale where Nick and I used to live were razed and in their place were three story single family dwellings.
The big old tree in front of my parents house was gone and replaced by a concrete pad. The old neighborhood where I grew up and the neighborhood that my husband and I lived for twenty plus years were not the same. And when I went back I realized that there was a lot to the saying that you can never go home again. And although I have not lived in Chicago since 1999, I have been back to Chicago a couple of times since then. And to the surprise of many including myself, I did. Her influence is directly responsible for me going after the job in Dayton, Ohio and making me believe that I was good enough for the job in Boulder.īut all of that meant leaving Chicago behind. She pushed me, supported me and kicked me in the butt when I needed it.
She opened my eyes to a world of professional possibilities. One of the more life changing experiences I had was working with a woman who became the most influential mentor I ever had. So I thought I would live in Chicago my entire life.īut things changed dramatically for me in 1993 when the Chicago Park District reorganized and I began working with a whole different level of talent and experience than the District had ever know before. When they moved, I was the sole remaining Drabik left in Chicago and my upbringing did little to make me think that I would ever live anywhere else. Yes they did retire to Florida but one of the driving factors for that move was the fact that my brother moved there several years earlier and so they felt they would still be close to family. My parents were born in Chicago and lived their whole lives there. When I grew up people stayed in the city where they were born until they died. If someone would have told me in 1998 that I would wind up living in Boulder, Colorado I would have laughed at them. I guess the trip my husband and I are planning back to Chicago is playing into these thoughts. And although the time between my last two hairdresser appointments have not yielded the monumental changes she wrote about, the last ten years or so especially since I left Chicago have. And yes, they were significant. It got me to thinking about the benchmarks in my life, especially the more recent ones. In the blog she posted today she recalled the significant benchmarks that occurred between her last two hairdresser appointments. I have to admit this thought did not come to me out of the blue but rather it was influenced by a blog written by one of my former students. Its after dinner and I am sipping a glass of wine and thinking about benchmarks.