…nothing remains as it was. If you know this, you can begin again, with pure joy in the uprooting.
-Judith Minty
I’m not one to talk about things until they actually happen but what I can tell you is that we are readying ourselves for a major move. I can’t really say much more than that except that it involves a business opportunity that will likely land us in a new city. To say that I’m a tad bit overwhelmed is an understatement. I’m having to remind myself a lot these days to just breathe.
Not that moving and me don’t know each other intimately. I have moved often in my life. You have to possess a bit of gypsy in your soul to choose a career in TV News. I have lived and worked in tiny towns and big cities. I’ve had the privilege of calling the Gulf of Mexico my backyard, and in another city had the far less glamorous experience of treating my olfactory senses to the powerful aroma of bacon wafting through my windows each morning, courtesy of the local meat-packing plant. Every stop on my journey has been an incredible adventure, full of more twists and turns than the Monaco Grand Prix.
Then came sweet home Chicago, undoubtedly the greatest adventure of my life to date. This is the place where I finally grew roots. Some 23 years ago I settled in an idyllic town along Chicago’s North Shore. During my years here I have been abundantly blessed with a sense of purpose and place. I can’t imagine saying goodbye. I keep thinking about that great line in the film, Silver Linings Playbook—You have to have a strategy. You do indeed. I had better get one. Thinking about leaving this place feels almost crazy to me after so many years. It has stirred up a deep sense of melancholy in me, a predisposition I suppose, of my Irish roots. One day I’m excited about the new adventure ahead, the next day I’m grieving the leaving.
It’s easy for me to see why. So many of my beginnings began here. I became a mother here. I raised my daughter here. I made life-long friends here. I logged hundreds, perhaps thousands of miles running along my city’s exquisite lakefront, its tree-lined winding streets, and its far less traveled back roads. So many unforgettable memories. But it appears that it is time to move on, to, as poet Judith Minty so eloquently put it, find the joy in the uprooting, to keep looking forward, even as I’m tempted to keep looking back.
Nothing is set in stone, no deal has been finalized yet, but there is no question that the winds of change are definitely blowing. In the meantime, it is wonderful to come back to the solace of this space. The certainty it affords me is just what I need at the moment. I guess you could say I have a strategy after all.
