I was standing on the packed train this morning with cold medicine running through my body, the new Craig Finn album playing through my earphones, and I had a “How the fuck did I get here moment.” If you had told me one year ago, or hell, even six months ago, that I’d be living and working in Chicago in January 2012, I wouldn’t have believed you. I didn’t think I had it in me. Such was the degree of stasis in my former life. I’m not quite sure what got into me; where I found the strength and motivation to make a drastic move in such a short amount of time. Sometimes it’s still weird to me that it actually happened. But here I am.

Tomorrow marks four weeks here. Not a long time in the grand scheme of things, I suppose, but long enough to make this feel real. Leading up to the move, I had a vision of how my life here would look. In some ways it was accurate, in other ways it was pretty far off. Some of the things I thought would be difficult have actually been quite easy, and some of the things I looked forward to the most have been much harder. Such is life.

It’s not perfect, it’s not ideal, but it’s better than what I had, and more importantly, it’s what I chose. I don’t regret it for a minute. Each day the novel gets closer to becoming the routine and I come closer to accepting that this is my life now. Is this what I want? It’s too early to tell, but for the first time in a long time, I no longer feel that everything is passing me by.

This post was brought to your by Sudafed and insomnia.