9:30 PM
The school year is wrapping up and with it comes a sense of both accomplishment and relief. I am preparing for some time away, heading back to Chicago for the first time since I moved a few years ago. The timing of this trip is eerie. Exactly a year ago I went away on a weekend trip with the same friends I will be visiting in Chicago, and it was during this trip that I finally realized my relationship was over. I didn’t plan this year’s trip to coincide with the anniversary of the end of my relationship, but it feels fitting.
My entire experience of Chicago is framed around my last relationship, I met him when I visited for internship interviews, we started dating even before my match-date, and I moved in with him a few months later. The entire time I lived in Chicago I with my ex. I visit now in a very different life circumstance with a perspective molded by all the transitions that began exactly one-year ago.
The man I am seeing lived in Chicago during the same time I did. We worked in adjacent buildings, frequented the same lunch spots, moved to California within a month of each other and settled in apartments separated by a mile. We never met, but for several years our spheres overlapped.
This fact fills me with joy. There is something marvelous about imagining all the times I may have crossed paths with a person who fills me with so much happiness now. I feel airy as I consider walking past him on the street heading to work or waiting in line at the grocery store. Had we met then, none of what I am experiencing now would have been possible.
Though we may have encountered each other, neither one of us was in a position to really ‘see’ the other. We were in our previous relationships. We couldn’t have felt the sparks we feel now or experienced the warmth of each others’ company. The light that is created when we are together could not have shined.
I am grateful for the passing of time because with it comes greater perspective. Though I have felt frustrated and defeated by not understanding why things unfolded as they did over the past year, these series of events are beginning to make sense. And, I trust that even more truth will be illuminated as I move forward.