The well runs deep.

So I rode on the brown line for the first time the other day to visit friends that live on the north side, and I realized that Paris has absolutely NOTHING on the lights of downtown Chicago at night. The same revelation happened in a discourse between my dad and me upon driving into the city to move my dresser back into my apartment. [Ironic that my dad would be the one to share my last and first impressions of Chicago in four months.] "Man Daddy, Paris just has nothing like that skyline." "No...no it does not." I had left Chicago last summer hanging out the passenger window of his red Toyota Tundra screaming, "I'm goin' to Pariiiiiiss!!!" and came back admiring its sky-scraping beauty. Both incidents gave me what I thought was complete affirmation that I'm ready to be back.

Or am I....

Literally praise the Lord that I had a significant hiatus in Rockford with my entire family, with my best friends, with Alex....I told him that it was like coming home to a safe place, where I didn't really have to try to understand the last four months of my life yet. I could just enjoy all their company, open Christmas presents, play family games, eat at the Olympic and JMK, party on New Years, go to Showplace 16, have candy and beer Are You Afraid of the Dark marathons with him at night, and coffee dates with the girls in the afternoons. It was so wonderful being in my hometown, and I'm very much afraid that I took it all for granted.

I think it's easy to get an idea in your head about a certain place, either romanticizing or demonizing it, and I know that I've had both about the three major settings of my life. I love them all so much, and in many ways the three cities remind me of each other. Paris, yes, on a somewhat larger scale, but all have been places to be conquered and all have been home. So here goes an attempt at compromising my three lives: Paris, Rockford, and Chicago. This will be my way of incorporating the last three weeks of my life in Paris with the first month of my life back home. My true curiosity in anticipation of returning was how I would manage looking back and looking forward at the same time. Would it be the same as Paris? Would I come to understand my time spent abroad better in a city where so much of the lifestyle is similar or would it just make it more difficult? Would time spent in my hometown make the transition easier? I hoped so...

And as it turns out, I was right. I'm coming to terms with the last chapter of my life being back, and it's been hard.

Life is lovely and difficult and confusing and cold...for now. But pretty soon the warmth will be back, and it'll all start to make sense. So after a long time away, here is the continuation of my frenchiefrenchie blog.....I really mustn't let it die.

This video posted 'in the love for' Caleb Followill and his ability to freely express deep emotion, albeit drunkenly...but I'm not judging.