A Hard Place to Leave

Travel Time!

As I acknowledge the deafening call of travel, it's just about time to dive into another culture, language, behavior, array of characters, perspectives, and growth with hopes of embracing a more worldly perspective. However, this time is different. Why? Because, this time I am walking away from Chicago....Chicago! I must be crazy.

Dearest Chicago, The Windy City, Frank Sinatra's Stomping Ground, Chi-town, The White City, My Kind of Town, The City that Works.....Chicagoland,

You have offered me more lessons in three years than I had in the 23 years prior to your presence. Walking into your vibrant chaotic grandness as a girl and leaving a woman. Chicago, YOU are where I grew up. No doubt about that. Offering the best and worst times of my life, and forming a foundation of strength and validity that only your influence could offer.

Thank you for letting me borrow your bone chilling reality followed by an optimistic beauty. For knocking me on my "ars", forcing me to crawl through the harshness until I picked myself up, dusted off my outer layer, and saw the unique nature that only this man-made city can possess. In translation, allowing me to give myself back to myself....with improvement.

Forever I am in debt for the people you gave me. For they have known a part of me that was foreign even to myself. I walk away from you not with my back turned, but with another standard of what I want out of life. To all who still roam those luminous avenues, or have walked through those streets beside me, you are plastered on my heart.


Dance large folks!

Ashley