The Road Not Taken; or, No Regrets

Last night I found myself caught That Mood. You know the one: you spend a lot of time feeling like you're staring into the void, marveling at the machinations of the universe, idly wondering if your life matters in the grand scheme of things.

The Mood was triggered by an influx of people in my life who have just moved/are about to move to Chicago. How fortunate am I!, I was thinking. My vast network of awesome people is merging into close proximity! And what fun we shall have!

At which point, my brain wandered into being a bit shellshocked that not only do I live in the midwest, I also really like living in the midwest. (Well, Chicago, at least. Let's not get too enthusiastic.) Which of course led to the inevitable reminder that I almost didn't move to Chicago.

I moved to Chicago to go to grad school. University of Chicago, very fancypants, very exciting, except for the part where I had already filled out the acceptance form for Claremont. I believe I even had an addressed envelope, stamped and ready to go. I was this close to mailing it so I could study in sunny California.

But I came here instead.

I tell people that my big, life changing decision was the result of a well-thought-out decision about the class options at both schools. I chose the school with the stronger ethics curriculum because I am all about logical, informed decisions.

Informed decision my ass. Here's why I chose the University of Chicago: no one from my college had been accepted by the Divinity School in over ten years and I'm both vain and extremely competitive. Bragging rights? Yes please.

I could go into all the weird bits that contributed to that attitude, like how my advisor, whom I very much admired, was so excited to hear I had been accepted that he kissed me (awkward!), but I won't. You're probably already sick of all this navel-gazing anyway.

Who knows whether I would have chosen Chicago without those influences. It's very possible I might have: the idea of living so close to L.A. to attend Claremont was rather horrifying. (Not that the south side of Chicago was all that much more appealing.) None of it is important, though, because this is the only thing that matters: I'm happy. And I'm happy because I live in Chicago. The end, c'est tout.

In conclusion, I'm hardly convinced that the universe cares what I'm doing with my puny little life, but I'm awfully grateful for the odd little nudges it's given to get me moving in this direction. Thanks, universe! You have an open invitation to visit me in Chicago any time!


Sorry for the navel-gazing, folks. I promise to get back to daily updates that you might vaguely care about tomorrow. In the interval: yay Bill Richardson! He's my favorite these days.