Last week I had the honor of being a bridesmaid in my friend Patti’s wedding.

Patti and I became close friends in Nashville when she was going to law school at Vanderbilt, but she moved back to the Chicagoland area, where we first met, once she graduated. Her wedding was in Libertyville, a suburb I’d only heard about.

Since we were going to be so close to Chicago, I decided to check with a bookstore I used to pass by nearly every day for over 15 years and see if they had a spot for me to celebrate Ghost Tamer’s paperback release. I gave them the dates I’d be busy at the wedding and said, “Any day before or after these dates.”

What do you know, they gave me the following Tuesday.

Dean and I decided that we would drive straight to Libertyville together the Thursday before the wedding, attend the rehearsal dinner on Friday, the wedding Saturday, then brunch on Sunday, then Dean would drop me at an AirBnB Sunday afternoon and drive back alone. On Friday and Saturday during the day, while I was bridesmaiding, he would have the car to go into the city and catch up with friends. I could get a one way flight back the day after my event.

Dean usually drives when we head out of town. One of the reasons for this is that he has always had PTO and I haven’t. I usually work in the car using my phone’s hotspot. Thursday was no different.

One of the reason the blog has been on hiatus is because the thing most on my mind was something I couldn’t publicly talk about. The publishing company where I work is being sold. It’s been a dream job and such a fun place to work. Our publisher died suddenly in Februrary. All year we’ve been waiting to see what will become of our jobs, what will become of the books, what the heirs would decide, but we couldn’t say anything about it. If word leaked, a panic could result in a lack of faith in the imprint, authors not getting events, books not getting ordered, etc. It’s public knowledge now. The deal is inches away from being signed as I type this.

On Thursday, I spent the car ride imputting data into Quickbooks to help the new company parse information. About an hour outside of our destination, stuck in rush hour traffic, we had our final team meeting.

We went around and shared our favorite memories about working together. The meeting lasted an hour and a half. We got to the hotel and I did a bit more work, then let everyone know I had reached my hourly limit and I’d most likely be doing wedding stuff for the next three days.

The wedding was slightly stressful, as all weddings are, but turned out beautifully. Libertyville is gorgeous and I actually got do to a run around the wedding venue—which was a wildlife preserve—a couple days before. Patti and Rachel wrote each other’s vows and didn’t get to see them until they read them out at the wedding. It was equal parts sweet and hilarious. The reception was way too much fun—there was a point where all guests were requested to change into pajamas and keep partying—and we got back to the hotel shortly after midnight.

Yes, that’s my husband in a charmander onesie. He decided to change early.

Sunday morning was anxiety ridden for me. I hate packing with the firey passion of ten thousand suns. And here I had to pack again, merely three days after I had just packed. Since I was taking a flight back, I attempted to put everything into a carryon. So Dean and I spent the morning sorting through things that he was bringing in the car and things that I needed with me.

Spoiler alert: I wasn’t able to bring either jacket I’d brought. And I ended up spilling a water bottle full of champagne—don’t ask—on the one hoodie I’d packed, so that went back with Dean also.

We had brunch, got to say farewell to all of the hung over wedding participants, then Dean drove me to Chicago. We decided to drop my things at the AirBnB, then head to Apple Fest in Lincoln Square—where I lived for 16 of my 17 years in ChiTown—and say hi to some friends that had a tent there, then say goodbye to each other.

I moved away from Chicago on February 28, 2019. I’ve been back to the city three times since then, but each time—a work event, a wedding, a book event—I’ve been downtown. This was the first time in over five years that I visited my neighborhood. My AirBnB was five blocks from my old condo. Some things had changed—the hookah store was gone, the jewelery store across the street is now a hookah store—but a lot was the same. The sound of the busses, the plethora of pigeorns in front of my Walgreens, the Little Ceasers, the Post Office, Harvestime: a.k.a. The Best Grocery Store In Existence, the little park by my old place, et cetera.

Dean and I found our friends in the crush of the Apple Fest and I remembered how much I used to hate the fests in Lincoln Square. I avoided them like the plague. They would mess up my bike commuting routes and there were always too many drunk people who didn’t live in the area. I found myself smiling as I remembered my own “get off my lawn” attitude.

Don’t get me wrong, I was completely justified.

The fest was CRAZY, but we found our friends. They were exhausted, but they said they netted so much money that it was worth it I found out later that all of the small businesses in the Square did holiday season level sales during Apple Fest. And I felt less hateful toward it.

And it was really nice to hug our friends.

I was too busy choking on nostalgia to get pictures of my running trail, but I did get this of the Lincoln Square arches with my Ghost Tamer cookie.

Once Dean left, I went back to the AirBnB, changed into running clothes, and headed out to my old running path. Out of habit, I ran by my old place. I wasn’t completely sure how to get to the path, but as soon as I passed my old door, my body just remembered where to go.

They had changed the landscaping. They were doing this when I left, chopping down many of the trees on the river. I was annoyed at that, and happy to be leaving so I wouldn’t have to watch it happen. But they’d let it all grow up and created wild habitats in those areas with wood chipped trails going through it. For the first mile, the surrounding vistas were new to me.

But I recognized the cracks in the asphalt.

Remembered the way I always stepped around the lumpy ones. Noticed a few had grown. It was wonderful and weird and sweetly painful. Farther on, the trail was closer to how I remembered it. And I even saw Dude Who Never Smiles. He looked just as he always did. I think he may have even recognized me because his glare shifted for just an instant when I smiled at him.

I spent the next three days in Lincoln Square. And a little bit in Andersonville.

My conversation partner, Ananda Lima, invited me to a writer’s salon on Sunday night. It was a fabulous, casual gathering of Chicago writers and I wish we had something like it in Nashville. There was a mix of largely established writers and brand new ones. Everyone just hung out, ate or drank if they wanted, and chatted. I wished I could have stayed longer, but I was wedding-the-day-before exhausted, so I left a little after nine.

A bus picked me up within minutes of my arrival at the stop, then the next bus picked me up seconds after the first. Public transportation is amazing and I miss it. I miss my bike. I used to bike everywhere in Chicago, but even waiting for the busses wasn’t as bad as it is in Nashville. It was kind of fun to ride them again.

Charles and me.

Monday I went for a morning run. It was suddenly 47 degrees, which I did not appreciate. I had to wear all of the warm running gear I had packed. But, even though I wore my head lamp, I didn’t need it. Even the river path was so well-lit it seemed ridiculous to keep it on. I did some work from the AirBnB, then after lunch, went to The Book Cellar where I was having my event. I introduced myself, chatted about the event, then said I was going to stay and work in their cafe for a bit. They gave me a free hot chocolate! And showed me the Ghost Tamer cookies they had prepared.

Monday night I got to have dinner with my friend Charles. There’s something about hanging out with someone who’s known you for twenty years. One, I still can’t believe I’m that old, two, it’s just easy in a way newer relationships sometimes aren’t. There’s no guessing where you fit in, if you fit in, if you’re behaving correctly, etc. Charles has seen me at my worst and my best. And amazingly, he’s still around.

On Tuesday, I ran the trail for the last time—I aniticpated sleeping in on Wednesday after the event—and decided to get out and work in different coffee shops around Lincoln Square. By now the sting had worn off and I just wanted to absorb it as much as possible. I don’t have a neighborhood coffeeshop in Nashville. If you don’t count the Starbucks right off the interstate. Technically it’s half a mile, I can walk there. It’s just not very atmospheric.

My morning was spent at City Skyline Cafe, an awesome shop that had only been there a year. I had a great conversation with the barista and my table looked like an old fashioned airplane. Back to the AirBnB for lunch then off again. I was trying to find a place with an outdoor patio, as the weather was beautiful, but work started pinging, so I settled for the old Starbucks. It had changed quite a bit, which was kind of fun to see. I worked there for a few hours before going home to get ready for the event.

My in-laws drove up from Peoria! I texted to see when they were coming in and asked if they wanted to meet up for dinner. They were down, so I sent them several places that were near the bookstore that were still open from when I was there. I haven’t been able to do that in Nashville. There are places nearby, but not just a row of places I can walk amongst. And perhaps that is specific to Lincoln Square.

We met and ate outside. I miss how there are no bugs in Chicago. If the weather is nice, you just sit outside without worrying about bug spray. I’m not kidding. There are literally no mosquitoes. It’s like the Saint Patrick of blood-suckers went through ChiTown and drowned them all in the green-stained river.

We got to The Book Cellar about 30 minutes before the event. They were already set up and gave me a complimentary glass of wine. I hope I get a chance to do an event there again. The vibe was just as I remember and the employees were so very sweet each time I went in. I set up my swag and then people began arriving.

Did you ever see “This Is Your Life?” I feel like it must be very very old, because I remember seeing it spoofed in cartoons when I was a kid, but this was like I imagined being on that show would feel like. Every person who came through the doors was a friend from my past, often someone unexpected. I just continually recieved jolts of joy. A student I used to teach in kickboxing class, a guy I worked with over a decade ago who still keeps in touch on Facebook, everyone from the theatre company I was a member of, people I did martial arts with, at least one person who inspired a character in the book. It was incredible.

And an adrenaline shot to my soul.

This year of uncertainty has been difficult. While Ghost Tamer has been winning awards, I’ve also been getting rejected from nearly one hundred agents. (We’re passing that one hundred mark soon, y’all, I have goals.) No luck with job applications either. And I’ve been struggling with anxiety, depression, and OCD. All of which have been made worse by the situation.

My brain has been telling me that I don’t have friends. That no one really wants to hang out with me. And the fun part is that I tend to withdraw when in that state, so I do not reach out to people, which feeds the narrative. I do have a therapist that I like for the first time ever and we’re working on it. But as she told me, “sometimes these kinds of things get worse before they get better,” and I am definitely in the '“getting worse” stage.

But seeing so many people come out on a Tuesday night—and at least half of them came to the bar afterward—just to support me was amazing. And a reminder that I am worthy of love and friendship, it just might take a while to collect people in a new city.

John is in the back doing devil horns. We didn’t take any pictures on that last day.

On Wednesday, my friend John was off work. He picked me up at 11 and we went to brunch, then coffee, then walked around Andersonville for a while until it was near time for him to pick his kids up from school. Then he dropped me at the airport a few hours before my flight.

John and I went to college together. He moved to Chicago after I had been there a while. We both struggled off and on during those earlier years. It’s easy to forget about the hard times.

As we reminisced, I asked, “Remember that time we were both unemployed, and I found five dollars somewhere, so we decided we were going to make the best of it and went to the store and bought the cheapest bottle of champagne we could find and decided we were going to enjoy drinking it on a Tuesday because we could because we didn’t have to work? And then the “champagne” was so shitty we didn’t even get a buzz?”

It was nice to be reminded of all the years I’ve survived. Wandering around Lincoln Square, I remember thinking about who I was back then, and how I would not have even been able to concieve what I’m doing now. Not in my wildest imaginings.

So I think I’ll probably survive this.

I really do look forward to seeing what’s on the other side though.