Anniversary

I was startled to realize that today may have been the anniversary of our move from San Francisco. I had to go back to Show Me Another City to verify this, and sure enough, it is. Wow.

A year ago, I was down at my parents' house with the boys after an exhausting day, and Matt was still at the old apartment on 16th Avenue, helping the movers get that crap out of there. They still had a couple hours to go, since they didn't wrap up until after midnight.

We weren't meant to move that day, they were just scheduled to pack the fragile items on June 24th and we thought we had a couple more days to organize our things. But that woman was in a hurry, and before we knew it we were racing to clean out the fridge and pack our suitcases for the flight to Chicago before they loaded our very dressers onto the truck.

No chance to say good-bye to neighbors, no chance to do anything gradually. But we allowed it to happen that way in part because she gave us a big discount on the cost if we let them do it early but also, I think, because the leaving was so painful that we just wanted it done. Time to go.

Like so many things in the past year, things didn't happen the way they were supposed to that day. But I've learned that this isn't necessarily a bad thing, and that if I can just go with it, things turn out surprisingly well.

The year has been an incredible one. I can't quite believe it has only been a year, actually, because Chicago feels like home.

But I bet I'll always think of San Francisco - with a pang of nostalgia akin to a break-up - right around this time of year.