{"id":152706,"date":"2019-11-14T05:03:47","date_gmt":"2019-11-14T10:03:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=152706"},"modified":"2024-10-27T15:25:32","modified_gmt":"2024-10-27T19:25:32","slug":"tbt-sweet-home-chicago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=152706","title":{"rendered":"#TBT Sweet Home Chicago"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\nI hadn’t seen this picture before. I’m staring at it, agog. It captures such a huge moment. This was taken the morning I left Chicago, packing up my car (and my cat Sammy) to drive back East to go to grad school. I have so many mixed feelings. I have so many mixed feelings about my choice to move. I made it in haste and – as they say – have “repented at leisure.” Rachel was there that morning to send me off (this photo is from her photo album). She was also there to be there for Mitchell, once I was gone. She knew he would need her, it was upsetting all around. There was a lot of emotion. <\/p>\n

I am wearing a “Pat McCurdy T-shirt” and anyone who knows me will know that this was a deliberate clothing choice. Again, so many mixed feelings. <\/p>\n

The night before, a bunch of us had all gone out to dinner – a big group of friends – my farewell dinner. I had invited Michael to come. He didn’t show. I hate it when other people do this but I will just say that this was before cell phones. (The reason I hate it is that the majority of human history “was before cell phones”). So, if you didn’t show up to something, if you got delayed, then, oh well, you just didn’t show up and nobody would know what had happened because nobody could call anybody. I was a little sad about Michael not being there. I was leaving early the next morning. It meant I might not see him again. Ever. Something important had happened with him<\/a>, I felt that saying goodbye to it and him was important. Goodbyes had way more finality in those days. <\/p>\n

Anyway, after the dinner, Mitchell and I came home. It was about 11 o’clock at night. I sat out on our front steps. I was drinking grape ginger ale. Why do I remember these things? It was a quiet night. I loved that neighborhood. We lived right behind the Music Box Theatre in Chicago. So I just sat there for about an hour, not saying anything, taking it all in for the last time. Facing an unknown future. At some point, I became aware of a man walking down the sidewalk approaching our house. It was so dark, with the night, and the tree shadows, I couldn’t see his face, but I’d recognize that walk anywhere. it was Michael. Come to say goodbye. He was smarter than I was in a lot of ways. In so many ways. He knew our goodbye had to be private. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I hadn’t seen this picture before. I’m staring at it, agog. It captures such a huge moment. This was taken the morning I left Chicago, packing up my car (and my cat Sammy) to drive back East to go to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[600,2496],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152706"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=152706"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152706\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":152851,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152706\/revisions\/152851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=152706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=152706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=152706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}