The other day I decided to take an adventure. Not the sort of glorified vacation as to the likes of +Jarrod Tembreull or +Luke O'Neil, but a reflective solo adventure none the less.
To those who don't know me, I tend to lean more on the introverted side of the social scale. Even growing up in Winona, I really don't think it was even until college that I really began to get out on my own. So as you can imagine, moving into the near suburb of Chicago has been difficult for me! So on Thursday, I decided to push myself on a little challenge.
I haven't really gotten out much since moving to Oak Park. Despite what I just got done saying up above, I don't think it has so much to do with me being introverted, but more because I have no money. I think I'll be writing a different post about that later, so moving on, I just haven't gotten out much. But Thursday I just had enough. I've been wanting for weeks now to take a solo trip into downtown Chi-town while Hannah is away all day in surgery, but I just haven't found, in my mind, the "right" day to do it. Thursday was the "right" day. It was beautiful outside, it had been dawning on my mind all morning, and the main deciding factor, was that I had spent the whole day killing flies in my apartment..... I have NO clue where they were all coming from, but by 4 o'clock, and after killing my 16th fly, I had to leave.
After giving my phone and computer a few more minutes to charge, packing my bag, and filling my water bottle, I was off! I walked the 2 blocks down the road to the Green Line and jumped on. While approaching downtown the train conductor came on the loud speaker reminding everyone that this train was only going through the Loop, since it was rush hour. I didn't think much of it because I was going to get off on the 3rd stop after entering the Loop. What I failed to realize, and what the train conductor failed to mention, was that during rush hour they did in fact only go around the Loop and not out the other way but that they also entered the Loop going the opposite direction than usual!
It's hard to explain the thoughts that were going through my mind at the time when we got to this first stop that I wasn't expecting, only because I made a silly mistake, and immediately after doing it I realized what I had done wrong. I decided to get off on that first stop, and I don't know why, because right after I got off it was like the clouds parted and I suddenly realized what an idiot I was for doing it. The train was just going to keep looping! I could have still made it to my desired stop if I would have just waited longer. So after standing there for a few minutes, I just decided to walk. This turned out to be a fine thing anyway, because by the time I was passing the stop I was initially going to get off on, I saw people that I was sitting by walking off the platform.
The rest of my time I spent trying to walk to the water front. This ended up being a little farther than I had expected, but it really wasn't that bad of a walk. My original plan was to go sit on the beach for a little while, but by the time I made it to the beach it was completely packed, and since I hadn't thought to bring a swim suit anyway I didn't feel like parking it on the sand. Instead I found a path that lead me out past the beach. I walked all the way out to that point and watched everyone out on their boats and read for awhile. It was about as halcyon a place as you can find in Chicago.
Not that I needed this adventure to discover this, but I am really not meant for the city life. The whole time I was downtown I felt rushed. All the waves of traffic, people driving not caring that you are walking by, and just the sheer populous! Its just not my cup of tea! Don't get me wrong, I think its going to be an incredible experience to live here for the next year, and I like Chicago well enough for entertainment, but I have no idea how people live here their whole lives.
Over all, I enjoyed myself well enough and made it back home safely. It felt good, surprisingly, to get out into the big world alone. I'd easily admit that I've enjoyed myself much more when I've gone downtown with +Hannah Dégallier and other friends, but I felt like it was a noteworthy experience none-the-less!
No comments:
Post a Comment