Thursday confessional

I have a confession to make.

I really like the South.

I think that somewhere, at my core, I am a Southerner. I like to think of it in the same way I consider red to be my natural hair color, just not the one that grows in.

Don't get me wrong, I love Chicago. Great city. Good people. Shitty-ass weather. Freakin' traffic nightmares. Really craptastic weather (it's so grey here. I forgot about the grey).

Down south, we have sun. We have breezier days and sweet tea and Southern Hospitality. Nobody owns a snow blower. I'm equally day-trip close to the beach and to the mountains. There's way the heck more sunlight. Did I mention how significantly less grey it is down there?

Truth be told, I could be very happy staying in the South. Chicago would be a place I came to visit every year or two when I was feeling nostalgic and wanted good pizza. If it all came down to logistics, I'd sign on to be a "damn Yankee" in a heartbeat.

(Because you know the difference, right? A Yankee is someone who comes from up no'th. A damn Yankee is one who comes and never leaves.)

But here's the rub.

I have these people in Chicago. Family of both the genetic and voluntary sort. And every time I come up here, I feel so acutely the problem of being away from them.

My God daughter came over for lunch today. She's seven, and she's awesome. Smart kid (duh), just funny as heck. Kicked my butt in checkers. We went to pick up the pizza together - just us - and had a little girl talk. She's at that stage where she's just starting to figure out that the world really is bigger than her and she's trying so hard to make sense of it. She's an amazing kid. I also really like her mom, Shelly (her dad is actually the one I'm related to. When they got divorced, Shelly got custody of us). Oh, my word, I adore that kid.

And then I went over to Robin and Brad's for burgers on the grill. We assembled the usual crew, our core group of people who've been friends literally forever. And oh...my God...I can't even tell you how good that feels. I was sitting there tonight, at Robin's kitchen table, in the kitchen that Brad remodeled himself, with these people...them, and their one year old son, who just steals my little heart every single time he smiles. Bianca and Steve (Steve may have had a different pseudonym before...it's 1am and I can't quite remember...) and their almost-three-year-old, who is like my favorite little boy (is he still a "toddler?" He sure isn't toddling...) in the whole wide world. Ali and Jer, whose wedding I was in, who, Ali and I have been friends since we were four and Jer and I lived together for two years. And Claudia, who's the closest thing I have to a real sister. I'm looking around at them tonight, and thinking of us all in high school (well, not Steve and Jer, they were later additions), sitting around the cafeteria tables. Doing choir and band and voice lessons. Going to school dances and football games. Ali and I climbing trees when we were little.

It seems, somehow, in retrospect, like such a simpler time. In truth, it was not. Adolescence is never easy (one of our attendings likes to say, "Puberty isn't good for anyone."), but we had a heaping pile of other crap to deal with, you know? Abuse and death and divorce and depression and all sorts of shit that adolescence is just NOT the time to be dealing with, but, you know, that seems to be such a time when life happens. Not just for our little clan and our friends, but for everyone.

And I look at us now, and we still have a lot of shit. But somewhere along the way, we turned into real grown-ups. With kids and lives and jobs and mortgages. With spouses and doctoral degrees and sensible cars and lawn mowers and dog walkers. With indescribable joys and unspeakable heartaches.

I cannot imagine my life without these people.

And while I think about staying in the South, or doing other fellowships elsewhere after I'm done with Child, or living in places like New York or Seattle or Canada, and I think about never spending another winter in Chicago, and living in a place where there's sun and beach and things that grow, and it all seems so utterly delightful...I cannot imagine myself being, long term, away from the minutia of our daily lives. Away from this, my chosen family. Away from my genetic family. Away from my cousins and my God daughter and my other good friends in the area. Not in any sort of permanent way. My roots are so deep here.

But I love what I do, and I love where I do it. I love the idea of experiencing different places and doing different things and establishing a life that is very authentically my own.

I do not know how to reconcile these things.

Fortunately, I have at least three years before the need to figure this out becomes more immediate. But, I? Have absolutely no idea how I'm going to do that...