A Few Months Later

Well it's been a few months since my last post, which really has been since I last traveled. I felt like writing another, more reflective post after having some time to get settled and reflect on the events surrounding this blog/travel excursion.

A quick update: I have been in Chicago for 8 months now and have gotten a very good feel for the city I would say. It took me 4 months to find and start a job that is just what I was looking for. That is much longer than I thought it would have taken but in relating to others who were or have been in the same situation i was in it actually was not very long at at all (especially considering the state of the economy, being fresh out of college and in a brand new city). My work, is working with abused children at residential treatment facility where they are basically given many different therapeutic outlets in order to come to terms with their inner demons and build skills to change their behavioral problems. After us they usually move on to another placement somewhere depending on the progress they've made. My job consists of interacting with the kids pretty much the entire time and keeping them on track with the daily routine we have.

My living situation is the same. I live with the same two guys but now I am on the lease and have a door and some more furniture in my room. They aren't as ideal of roommates as I would have hoped but given the cheap price and quality of our living space there really isn't too much to complain about. I've been able to meet a good group of people out here and a few others that i have enjoyed spending time with as well. I also really enjoy the company of people that I work with as well. I have to work on the weekend evenings a lot and that kinda blows. But all in all I feel that I am definitely set up here and in a very workable routine with some familiar faces.

So with all of that being said, I think I must honestly say that I think about coming back to the west coast at least 3 times a day, quite often more. I'm glad to be in Chicago and I feel that the experience that I have gotten and am getting here is great (work and life) but I'm not sure how much longer I really want to be here. I think about all my great friends in Oregon all the time and how much I feel that the distance is creating a gap between us that I just can't stand sometimes. I think about how even in Oregon transit to the bay area was much more feasible. Here it is a hassle to get there and I've gone a long time without having visited there. Going somewhere, like the bay, for the weekend is a huge hassle now. And with working on the weekend evenings here it has made it much harder to go out and have fun and continue to be social the way I would like to be. I've found this to be something that I value a lot. Not even really going out and partying but socializing with people all evening is something that I've discovered to be very important to me.

My work, is great and bad. It is a very stressful job so that is the bad part. There are some bad days where I don't want to be there at all or the kids have done something to really piss me off. Ultimately though, this is the exact job that I wanted. And there are a lot of good days and certain things i enjoy about my work. Just goofing around with the kids is fun and having a good time with my co-workers is a lot of fun as well. I love the facility and the way they've set it all up. I know that the experience I'm getting here really lays a foundation down for a lot of opportunities in the future. And I can honestly have a lot of fun there too. I run a cooking group for the kids, we'll go on walks to the park and hang out, we'll go to the gym and play basketball for an hour, with the Finals on TV we can just sit around and watch the game. But sometimes the kids are very volatile and it's tough do have to tough on them for being disrespectful. I do feel that if I were on the west coast this would be much easier.

In many ways I still feel like I'm traveling. Now that I have money I take one of my days off as an opportunity to just explore a new neighborhood of Chicago I haven't been too, and make no mistake, this city is vast. I also feel like I'm learning about a new region of the world by living there. It may still be the same country and a liberal city but it's much different than the San Fran bay area or Eugene, OR. It's just been a damn long traveling experience in some ways. The tough part is I feel like I'm stuck here sometimes.

I burned through all of my money traveling and not having full-time work for 4 months. Now I have money that I owe on my credit card and as much as it sucked I do owe my Dad some money too. On the plus though, I'm making a lot more money then I'm spending so it should only take me a few months to pay everything off (which is barely anytime). I get great paid leave from work (1 month and 1 sick week on top of that) but I can't use that until I've been there for 6 months (I've been there for 4 months). All of that combined leaves with this feeling of being trapped sometimes, which is very tough to deal with seeing as for a long time I never felt that way and loved feeling that way. I don't have the finances to pick up and leave, I really should leave my first job out of college in the field that I want to be in until I've been there for a year and I don't have access to really take some time off work to do some more things that I'd like to do (like explore the Midwest more or come back to the west coast for a bit).

My roommates are good people but I honestly feel like I live with a couple of teenage girls sometimes. They are very possessive about their things sometimes and frankly I think they're just self-centered. One is much worse than the other. The good friend of mine out here I still enjoy his company a lot (and the other roommate too) but one thing I've learned since coming out here is that I don't think him and are really that amazing of friends. I don't think he is a very good friend to me sometimes and I think he his still has his personal things that he has to deal with (which often get in the way of how he socializes with other people). I feel like since I got here with them they've judged me a lot for being younger than them in what can be fair sometimes but is unfair a lot of the time. And when i was looking for work I felt that they were both much more critical than they needed to be which made a tough time for me even tougher (especially considering that I was really missing the west coast at that point). Once again though, the roommate that I didn't know that well before hand is and was much worse about this then the other.

However, even with all these stressors I don't regret my decision for one second. There was a point before I decided to leave and go to Chicago that I thought I was going to have to stay in Oregon and that was a very unfortunate and just fucking trapped feeling. Some of my friends have expressed they felt this way to me and to those that have I must say i understand your pain, even if I onyl felt it for a week or so. I know that if I had stayed there I would have felt like I was trapped and not making the most out of an opportunity. The weight off my shoulders of having left and doing everything that I did and still do is more than worth it. Plus, I have the rest of my life to live on the west coast but I won't always be able to pick up and leave for a year or 2 if I want. It really does feel good to know that I was able to go to a brand new area and establish myself the way that I have. Chicago is a truly amazing city. It is a city that has always had an appeal with me and getting to know it and see it the way I have is something that I know I will always appreciate. All the stressful aspects, I appreciate those too. They are annoing, but because of them I have been able to learn vast amounts about myself. It has shed light for me on some of my past experiences in ways that I am still wrapping my head around. In coming out here I think I was truly able to appreciate Oregon and the bay area for what they were to me. I needed that other perspective/experience/geographic area to put things into better context for me. This was something I though going to a new area might do. Plus just the fact that I saw that I wanted to do something and then got up and did it (and found a way to do it) is just awesome. It's an important thing to be able to do I think in order to make the most out of your life.

The most troubling thing for me though is that I feel like my optimistic and sometimes faithful (without too much spiritual) attitude has changed. I think that my have something to do with the friends that I have around me some now. It may be my roommates who are definitely more pssimistic. Not having the set of friends that I had in Oregon around me is a big part because I felt we were all very open to meeting new people and just going with the flow. The trapped feeling from work and finaces certainly may have an affect on that. But ultimately I think it rests on me. The experiences I've had here may have made it harder for me to keep that mindset, but when you are challenged that is when it is important to stick to your goals and values. I think I haven't been steered off course but I could to a better job of staying the course (I don't like George W. Bush, I just think the quote fits). I definitely do enjoy the experiences that I have and the new and interesting things that I do get to do, but it would just be nice if it wasn't such a pain the ass sometimes. Enough of that though. Chicago hasn't worked out to be exactly what I was hoping for but I really do enjoy exploring the neighborhoods, talking with people from different regions here, the work that I do, looking at that gorgeous lake, riding the L train to work everyday, going to a couple of local bars and feeling like if I had the money I could go anywhere and do anything now that I've done something like that. Things aren't ideal, I don't think this is the right region for me and I miss the west coast dearly...but I know everything will be alright.