Go.

I am a Chicagoan in the truest part of my roots, but there is one thing I've grown to detest to the core while living here. One thing that I never could've foreseen from the outside looking in, and had no roadmap for navigating until I dug down and planted some roots in these streets I call home.

Over and over again I hear the repetitive mantra of Chicagoans hating the winter and wanting to flee this city in those five bone-chilling months. I hear talk of sunny California or milder climates or "I would stay if it wasn't for the weather..." 

But for all the reasons I am in love with Chicago, certainly the cold cannot blur out the best.

It's not February or the traffic or the CTA delays or even the hard-headed-get-what-I-want attitude that develops somewhere in the midst of it all. As the third largest city in the US, the culture and nature of city-living is just this: Transient. Maybe it's purely definitive of life in the 20's, or being "young and mobile with the whole world in front of you...," but I've partnered with other age groups spanning the generations, and I can't say it is wholly subject to my stage as a single 26 year-old. As a teacher, I can trace the pattern in city families, who after a few years burn-out from carting their littles in & out of alleyways and jet out to the suburbs or to the greater Midwest... greener backyards and a more livable lifestyle calling them elsewhere. 

Chicago friends & Donuts.

It's Chicago. 

Even the "tied-down" are loosely tied, and the young&free are wired to search for broader horizons in the window of just a few years.

Beach days with this girl are some of the best.

You see, three years ago I met a music-loving, hard-working, coffee-snobbing;), soul-searching friend that I have grown to love like a sister. We met through a series of unplanned circumstances (is there any other way to meet...?) and she was the first friend I made on my own outside of roommates. Although I had many acquaintances a few months into city-living, there's something about a First Real Friend that bonds you forever. At the time, we pretended we were grown-ups as we just started lives in the big city. But when we look back, we both know we were merely kids back in 2010... completely blindsided by the way God would grow us individually and together. 

Summer nights with Sonja.

And we did - we grew up together these past few years. We shared rooftop parties, patio drinks, and a unique church community; we modeled in a freezing photoshoot in the middle of snowy woods; we hunkered down and ate soup and cried over boys; we camped in rural Wisconsin in the pouring rain; we explored dive venues for new music and danced and sang away the night; we ate burgers and won trivia matches with my brothers; we wrestled with God and jobs and direction and what the point of it all is. We upheld one another at the worst, and celebrated with each other during the best. The three years I have lived in Chi, I have only known with Sonja walking right beside me. She was the phone call, she was the one I would show up in sweatpants and a high-bun, she knew where I had been and where I was going. She taught me to dream outside of the Kindergarten classroom, and encouraged me to risk the unknown and pursue a degree in graduate school.

This restaurant that Sonja has poured her heart & soul into from the wee hours of the morning into the latest of the night.
Little Goat is forever changed by the tireless love of Sonja.

Bidding farewell on the rooftop of the Goat.

And now, as all young vagabonds who move to Chicago do, she leaves for the west coast. The inevitable time to return to her beloved roots has come, and I will miss her from the depths of my heart. I am thankful for living these last three weeks side-by-side as she chose the Lily couch over the air mattress, woke up with fresh coffee in her chemex, and left Little Goat treats on our counter in the late hours of the night when she returned from work. We both knew that the days counted down, but were sustained by the city adventures we planned ahead. 

Little Sonja-isms left in our kitchen.

Photobooth fail.

This girl. Her heart for others and God astounds me and has challenged me to be the best me. 

As S moves on to her next phase of life, I have to keep building and loving and investing in the midst of transience that is Chicago. Because I wait in expectation for the day that Sonja and I will share a cup of coffee in her home city together as we chat new relationships, career moves, and life up's/down's. We will laugh and cry and rejoice as we recount what God has done since she moved. On that day, I will fully know that even as friends come & go here, there is something that is built together that cannot be taken back. We never know the road life will take; but I know we will look back and remember who we are in this moment and how we have grown into more of our truest selves to come.

She will miss this city.
This city will miss her.

Seattle can steal my friend, but it's only a city. 

A First Friend is Forever... and that is a gift.