"Never tell me the odds." - Han Solo, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back
I understand that many people leave Chicago feeling the exact same way as I did...like they want to stay, and believe me, I understand. However, with a semblance of a solid plan, I made the decision to move there rather quickly (I will be there on 9/25 of this year), and so am really on a time crunch. Other than the time restraints, I really have nothing holding me back like I've thought for the past five years, whilst trying to relocate out of my current city. I would always make up some stupid excuse as to why I couldn't leave...always. I'll still be taking online courses and am finishing up college, however this is a new slate, new state, new people, new opportunities.
Moving will ultimately restore my well-being, my mental health, help me in getting my sense of humor back (heck, I was never even close to being a fraction of a "class A or class B comedian" here before, nor will I ever be, but my ability to make people smile and laugh was a hell of a lot more apparent than it is now - my personality has just gone m.i.a., it's just not what it was a few years back - shit just got a little real around the end of 2013), and this move will also help me tune up social skills, just...the way I used to be prior to 2013-2014 when life situations that were occurring just had a long term effect on my joy, my sense of humor, a certain zest for life that I had up until my early 20s, and just...my overall outlook on life, I suppose. All those aspects of my just diminished over time, and it was replaced by a serious, rigid nature that I quite frankly am done with (it's really not me, and I was always a free spirit, life improviser and was dedicated to the arts), as well as the thought and knowing I'm living for a basic, mundane acquiescent existence without really living to help others, just myself. In short, always worrying about myself is not how I want to live, nor is it how I'm going to live. Thanks, but no thanks, mate!
As far as Chicago...just take a look at this stunning city!
So...that being said, I'm uprooting to Windy City, USA! I don't want anything from anyone, I just want change, and to be in a position where I can make others happy. 😃
And yes, I'm making this move happen! Life was just always barren, too busy, while managing to simultaneously be boring, and uninspiring in Cincy. And I'm here for 2 more months... Our human souls are not meant to be kept in one place for too terribly long, anyway. I need actual life experience. So sayonara, Cincinnati! (This post is very pic-heavy! There's no fathomable way I'll be able to get all the pictures of my entire trip into one blog post).
And yes, I'm making this move happen! Life was just always barren, too busy, while managing to simultaneously be boring, and uninspiring in Cincy. And I'm here for 2 more months... Our human souls are not meant to be kept in one place for too terribly long, anyway. I need actual life experience. So sayonara, Cincinnati! (This post is very pic-heavy! There's no fathomable way I'll be able to get all the pictures of my entire trip into one blog post).
Architecture Tour
It's not often that I go sightseeing when visiting a place, but since this wasn't even close to my first time in Chicago, I realized that I had yet to tour the magnitude of the stunning architecture all throughout the city! So what can I say, I decided to boat-tour it up this last time around from the Navy Pier, lmao. I didn't find the time to actually go inside any of these significant Chicago landmarks, and some other things I wanted to do on this trip (but will do when I move there!) include a visit to the Marquette building, as well as the Maritime Museum, and Myopic Books, a really cool tri-level bookshop. But that will be for next time! Just an fyi, half of these buildings I don't even remember the name of.
Trump Tower
Willis Tower (Sears Tower)
Wrigley Building
Civic Opera Bvilding
This weirdo's expression after the tour's conclusion 😂
Why I'm Saying 'Sayonara!' to My Home City 😀
(If you're a Cincinnati native as I am, love the city, and don't want to read something that may piss you off, then that was the conclusion of the Chicago architecture aspect of the trip! Feel free to simply close the page, and just stay tuned for the next Chicago blog post...if ya still like me if you decide to read this, that is 😊). This will be the only time I talk about my experience living in Cincinnati on my blog, and I'm tactful but outspoken by nature, so this will be a completely uncensored, unfiltered experience of a person living in Cincinnati for 22 out of 25 years of their life. I like think that every city has its cool aspects and positive little quirks, but unfortunately, while living here, the negatives eventually did outride the positives. So, where to begin. I don't like to talk much about myself as it is, especially not to, as I discovered, a lot of people I've met while living here over the years - some have been awesome, most have just reminded me why I'd just rather stay to my introverted ways lol. Either it's me, or it's them, both, or the situational aspects, but I've found that it's become a pretty uniform experience all around here. I'm easily able to make friends when visiting certain, more urban parts of the city (as well as Madeira and surrounding areas), but usually I just end up having to go out of the city to meet people to get to know, if I want to have a conversation with somebody that doesn't succeed after the fifty shades of flakiness and constant cancelled plans on their part, a drunken brawl somewhere in the background if we actually do get to the point of hanging out (because, ya know, bars are kinda the social norm here), and being next to screaming cheering people at a sporting event. Nothing wrong with the latter, I just wish I knew more sports stats. I like going to a Bengals game every once in a while though. 😊But yeah, I have a pretty interesting family with pretty cool ancestral backgrounds on both sides, so I have no idea where my lame ass fits in there lol. I love my family dearly, and used to love talking about them to others (it's in past tense - I'll get to that). They've all gone through many trials and tests to reach their muses of inspiration, and they are inspiring to have been inspired themselves, thus being able to reach their ever-enriching talents and potentials. People living in a lot of parts of this city just kind of make a disgusted face at the thought of other people wanting to learn different languages, playing instruments that curate the enrichment of the mind and soul, and that leads to making original music, reading books as an actual hobby, and for reasons that aren't just part of academia (oh, the horror - I guess the decreasing love for reading is pretty much everywhere now, though 😂), people who prefer not drinking (in 8 out of 10 social situations, these people are automatic shit-starters and cannot be trusted, as I've learned 😂😂), oh, and when someone doesn't want to talk politics or the kind of person they were in high school/high school in general, people get piiisssed and shut down the conversation in 0.08 seconds lol. My cousin is an artist, my father a jazz musician, they're both professionals in their fields, they broke the mold, and they travel the world to cultivate their inspiration and their minds when they have the opportunity, and they're two of the most inspirational people I know. Going a generation back from my mom's and dad's, is a part of my family that have some interesting, actually proven, surreal life stories that would probably go over most people's heads (including my own, honestly).
What I discovered is that a lot of Cincinnatians like talking about sports, alcohol, Jimmy Buffett, country music, Red's, P&G, gossip on and on about other people, and the political party affiliate discussions (of which are mostly lacking elementary intellect, nor are they tactful). And frankly, many parts of the city, some I've seen just from first impressions, are extremely backwoods and overtly racist. Me? I've always liked to discuss things like the arts, literature, writing, comedy, philosophy, social constructs and sub-topics of sociology, music, history...I'm not claiming to be intelligent or have any wish to portray myself as this super interesting person to simple minded fools - this is just the shit that another simple minded fool (yep, myself), is interested in learning more about lol, and shit that I sometimes wish I could talk to people about! So, I've pretty much held an actual conversation about that last range of topics with maybe a grand total of 15 or so people in my entire time living here. Pretty much, in summation, if you don't have a beer in your hand here, people don't trust you...Just imagine waking up every morning with an inner commentary pep talk to yourself, just so that you can get through the day with the complacency in knowing that after trying for 22 years, you're not going to get the inspiration you need in the city you live in, the awesome human interactions you crave, the awesome conversations you want that don't fizzle out after two minutes. That shit gets stale AF, and rather quickly, too.
In the last 1.5 yrs, though, I guess I just kind of stopped trying to get to know people here. I had my own issues I was dealing with, and all conversations I both witnessed and took part of just seemed...pretty much synonymous to one another, always veering towards those same topics in one way or another: small town-small talk is what I call it. Maybe even after moving around different parts of the city, I just kept choosing the wrong places to live? I was just trying to save some dinero, and there are a couple of cooler, more intellectual areas in the city with a more reduced chance of overt drunkenness, thereby with safer roads to drive (who would have thought that commissioning less dive-bars or, hell, general bars in an area would extrapolate these results of - shocker! - a town with less alcoholism and DUIs on the road? Mind=Blown 😂), and these are areas which I only had the pleasure of visiting a handful of times each: one more historical, community-driven suburban area (that just happened to be adjacent to one of the most expensive neighborhoods in the Midwest, so this area all around has insane property taxes and exorbitant rental leases), and a couple urban areas, one being not far from the UC main campus and the other extending not far from that, but in the uppermost northern side of the city, however I couldn't afford to live or drive to hang out in these places at the time (I only had classes at main campus for a few semesters). I know, excuses, excuses, but they were valid at the time.
So, I took took the most unhealthy approach, and just caved inward. For a while, I was really too busy with school, family, and trying to build professional work connections to really get out and meet new cool people out of the area that I could possibly get to know, and as everyone else, I have flaws, faults, and issues, so never categorized myself under that dumb 'victim' woe-is-me archetype - I just wanted to deal with everything on my own, and just shut myself off from everything else, so that I wouldn't unload it onto others. That's how I handle things best. And when I got busier than ever, not being able to manage time then, and now, started to seriously kill my spirit - I soon realized that my spontaneity was gone, as well as my drive for change. I know that in this past year or two, I missed out on getting to know plenty of awesome, artistic people here who don't rely on the ol' bottle to have a good time, and I have met a fair few in the past from college and we still hang out from time to time.
One single isolated occasion in particular scoffed me up a bit - it had occurred where I had been talking to someone for a bit, and we were joking around, and, of course, the deep, thoughtful discussions were there, and then I decided to say something interesting/cool about someone I love very much. If we're proud of our families/friends for whatever reason, we are inclined to talk about their achievements/life events, right? Well, it didn't go over so well in the long run, with this person. I later had to state that I wasn't trying to garner sympathy or attention (wth??) from sharing something...that didn't even happen to me... Yeah, that's correct: You get a little personal with someone, and here, they're unfortunately so emotionally repressed and so out of tune with their emotions - they automatically feel as if you expect something from them, from telling them anything. No, no...it's human nature, and people have one-on-one conversations like this all the time. This is how it went, and what I had to end up saying: 'I gave maybe a slight iota of care as to what you thought of me before I told you anything, and I frankly care even less of what you think of me afterwards. Because...if I'm comfortable enough to tell you something personal while we're no more than acquaintances, I'm obviously taking a gamble there, and didn't have much hindsight as to how you would approach it, as I don't know you that well, so decided to just say something...thinking, what the hell lol, take with it what you will. I never talk about it, and I only brought it up in one conversations, and I frankly don't care what you think. Think whatever you want of me. You learned something new, ok...a perspective, perhaps. I learn a lot from other people, too. Not everyone wants something extra from you, or come at you with a false pretense. They may just (gasp) want one person to listen...just one time - regardless of the reaction they may get. And then they can just go on, let it go, and keep it pushing... Acceptance from others is nice, I suppose, I accept everyone I meet as they are, they have both awesome traits and flaws, I have both mine! But people-pleasing just is never what I wanted to base my life upon...I'm too independent for that. So afterwards, I had to convince this person: No, you don't owe me anything, just because I decided to get a bit personal with you...just...seriously? Nor do I understand why you would think that. The topic came up, and I decided to say something. I apologize if you thought it was oversharing at a somewhat early time, but damn...give me a break. It's not even that big a deal, nothing dumb or shitty they did on their part - it was simply a rather pivotal part of their life where they and others they were with, helped out an aspect of humanity in a situation, and it, in a way, did indeed mold them into who they are now, as well as being just a minor part of my relationship with them, and I just felt like saying something as we were talking, and the subject (gasp!) actually came up. Wouldn't just bring it up out of nowhere. Wow, a revelation there! Seriously, I go into everything with zero expectations. Since then (and even before then), I haven't really gotten personal on any subject with anyone I've gotten to know...people are just so emotionally repressed here, I've come to understand that it really is not worth it...seriously.
That was just my experience with the city, and there are many other reasons why I'm finally making this big move: As far as taking my violin playing anywhere outside of my living room...the music scene in Cincinnati is pretty much nonexistent, so, gotta take that out of town, in order to grow. I need to be in a good place right now to be in a mindset to get tha shit done and get to a point where I'm able to help (and hopefully inspire) others! 😄 I've just concluded that after exercising all other possible ideas to make things better while still living in my current city, I finally decided that it just wasn't enough. In my situation, it really is just the city, and not so much me. City bashing aside, it's "livin' the dream, crossin those T's and dottin those I's" for some, but not for all.
Geology studies are taking a backseat for just a semester. 😄 I'll get back to it in the spring. 😌
Geology studies are taking a backseat for just a semester. 😄 I'll get back to it in the spring. 😌
And oh yeahya, Chicago is a rather beautiful place in the summertime! Stay tuned! More Chicago adventures to come! 😊
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