We’re moving to Hyde Park this weekend after three years in Pilsen – four years total for me. This is the longest time I’ve lived anywhere since moving out of my parents’ house twenty years ago, and as I write them down, both of those numbers seem crazy to me. For a solid decade, I moved at least every year, and while few of those moves were capricious, this current move has been so exhausting that I can’t imagine what the previous ones were like.
But I suppose things are different now. This apartment is the first that we shared together, and the last place we lived before becoming parents. It’s where we brought our baby home from the hospital. Where I breastfed him in the green chairs by the window while watching the marathon that I had wanted to run. Where he learned how to roll over and crawl and walk and talk and feed himself and use the toilet and draw jellyfish. Where those milestone came on the back of days and weeks and months of broken sleep. It’s where we said goodbye to Pandora, N’s faithful cat companion of many many years.
When I first moved to Chicago, Hyde Park felt like the suburbs to me – geographically far, relatively sleepy, and generally undesirable for someone who wanted to live in the city. I fell in love with the idea of a certain kind of life, and Hyde Park didn’t offer any of those things.
But again, things are different now. Five years ago, I went dancing every week. My weekends involved boozy nights out and foggy headed brunches with friends. I could do my long run, nap all afternoon, and then stay out until the wee hours with few consequences. It’s been almost two years since I went dancing – not since Neo closed. We’ve been trying for almost two weeks to wrangle a night when the toddler goes to sleep early enough that we aren’t too wiped to go out for an hour AND our friend is available to babysit. Long runs are squeezed in between early morning grocery store breakfast dates and trips to the park and the lake and the butterfly garden. Most nights I’m in bed before 10, if not earlier.
When we chose Pilsen, it was because it split the difference between the north side, where we would prefer to live, and my work on the south side. We were three miles from the heart of downtown and two miles from the lake. We could see the Sears Tower and, on a clear night, fireworks over Navy Pier. We could pretend like we were still going to go out, even if the reality was very different.
Pilsen has been our home, but it’s time to move on. Over the last year, it’s become clear that Hyde Park offers us many of the things we value about the north side – for example, access to the lake and museums – but with a dramatically shorter commute. In the years since I moved here, a number of amenities have been added to the neighborhood that have made it sooooo much more appealing – for example, there are grocery options other than the terrible Treasure Island. The wide range of ethnic foods down the street from us (and Jolly Pumpkin!) is a better fit for N’s vegan-mostly diet than the Mexican-mostly options in Pilsen. And I don’t even know where to begin with the parks.
So: it’s bittersweet, but it’ll be good. I will miss our life in Pilsen, particularly our lovely light-filled apartment, but I’m excited to start our new life in Hyde Park as well.
latterdaybohemian 