Chicago

So I made the trek to Chicago on Sunday. I drove my little truck up to University Park and jumped on part of Chicago’s marvelous public transportation system, paid my $5 (no trip limit all weekend, a better bargain, you will not find) and rode the train into the heart of Chicago. I got off the train at what used to be called the Randolph Street Station, but has been renamed Millennium Station for the park that has been created across Michigan Avenue. I had an hour to think about what was going to happen once I got there and by the time I stepped off the train I was shaking like a leaf.

I met a wonderful woman there. We wandered around Millennium Park and just sat and talked for about an hour. We had been emailing back and forth and had spoken on the phone for one long conversation and a couple of times after that, but we had never done the face-to-face thing. It was good to see her and meet her and just hang out with her.

I will interject that there had been a huge hatch of dragonflies by the water and they were EVERYWHERE. It was a lot of fun to watch them fly around our heads and light on the flowers and grasses in the gardens that we passed through.

We talked about everything: Politics, growing up, the weather, jobs, work history, animals, the dragonflies, etc. Then we went and ate some lunch and wandered about the city a little more. I had my own private walking tour of the riverfront and we wandered around just looking at the buildings and the architecture up and down the streets. She is beautiful, intelligent, witty and fun to be around. I like her a lot, but there were no sparks. D A M N I T! I am pretty sure that she felt the same way, so I guess we’re on the same page. It was nice and I want to keep her friendship because she is a person of substance and makes me want to be a better person. I kind of knew that this was where we were at, but you have to take a closer look sometimes, hold things up to the light and examine them.

I know it sounds like I am being ungrateful. But I am grateful. She showed me parts of the city I had never seen before and she gave me a true Chicagoan’s appreciation of that city and I have a new friend, someone that I can talk to and listen to and have a new reason to go to Chicago. The “wins” in the situation far outnumber the losses.

I guess I will go back to the old drawing board and trust that the Universe has something bigger and better in mind for me. And, yea, there are no U-Haul’s in my immediate future. . .