Life Transitions and New Chapters
Rich discusses his recent life transition of moving from the neighborhood of North Center, where he spent the last seven years and his twenties, to Uptown. He reflects on the idea of life chapters and the feeling of having a blank slate. The individual choices you make in each chapter determine what it will look like. Make it beautiful.
There are moments of our lives where we can feel ourselves transitioning. We’re always transitioning and changing, but formal moments can really signal to us that we’re about to enter something new. It could be a graduation, getting a job, getting married, having a kid. They’re very clear. Some people, like myself, think of it as a new chapter and that our lives are compiled of numerous chapters that tell the story of our life on earth and what we did with it. Lately, I’ve experienced a transition of my own: moving to a new apartment and neighborhood after spending the last seven years at my last. It was the apartment of my twenties and it was there that I really became a man.
Last summer I had this feeling that I should move on. As much as I loved the spot, I thought it would be my last year there. Then COVID happened, and I thought No way. I’m not going anywhere right now. But I would need to find a new roommate. I approached Ken, my creative partner, about his thoughts on living together. He was excited. Two of our other friends, Samy and Bones, are in a music duo called Bonelang. They’re super talented. Samy was actually the first official guest on my podcast and I hooked him up with Blue Byron Books to get his poetry published. Samy and Bones live in a neighborhood called Albany Park, on the northwest side. It’s a very diverse and vibrant area. They’ve lived together for like eight years and built a studio in their basement. It’s a space where they do their work and create music that I love. Both Ken and I have hund out there numerous times and, I think, we envisioned creating our own space like that.
Ken lived in Uptown, on Argyle and Marine, in a high-rise. I wasn’t too keen on living in a high-rise. It was either he’d move in with me, I’d move in with him, or we’d find a different place. After much consideration, we determined that his apartment would suit our goals best. It’s on the ninth floor compared to the first on mine. It has better natural lighting and sound proofing. So as I’m recording this, I don’t have to worry about the outside noise! You know what I forgot though? How much time and mental energy moving drains from you!
Everything is all set up now and looking good, but the last two and half weeks to a month ate up most of my focus! The move itself was pretty painfree. It turns out it’s great to move from a unit on a first floor to a place with a service elevator. It’s like all the logistics and communication and blah blah blah. It’s not a fun thing. It had been seven years.
I really loved my old place. It was in the neighborhood of North Center. Such a big and important part of my life happened there. It kind of reflects my own life in a way. When I moved there in 2013, there was hardly anything around. It was kind of like an older industrial area that was pretty spread out. Throughout those seven years though, I’ve seen the community grow and build all around me. It’s better off than when I got there. It’s interesting. Isn’t that what you want to see? You want to see your neighborhood thrive.
As much as I love my old place, I already love my new one! I didn’t anticipate feeling this way initially. There’s a lot of energy in this area. I feel like it actually fits me better. The neighborhood of Uptown is dense and reminds me a bit of New York. It’s historic. It’s diverse. The buildings are cool. It’s right on the lake. The park is my backyard and I have access to a rooftop that overlooks the lake and Chicago skyline. Get this. There’s a window in my shower and it overlooks the beach! While I’m showering, I stare out to Lake Michigan. Oh man. Life is good. And it’s actually cheaper for me to live here! Can you believe that?
I think one of my best skills – of many of course – is extracting value from something perceived as ordinary or mundane. I can find the interesting or the good in everything: from people to my surroundings to life. It doesn’t matter. I’ll have to talk more about this at another point. Awareness is underrated. I actually just started reading Moneyball, so it goes along this path. Most people go with what society values and strive to accumulate the accomplishments and milestones laid out. But there’s more opportunity and fulfillment of determining what you actually value and want to do, and pursuing that. There’s little inflation.
Something I’ve been thinking about is how I have a blank slate. It’s a new chapter and wide-open. I know what happens in this chapter of my life. I know that already because I’m living the life I set out for, but I don’t know the accessories or details yet. I don’t yet know the people that I’ll meet, the moments I’ll have and where they are, or the background music that will paint the vibe. Everything is open. I’ve even been exploring music I haven’t listened to before. But it has been a little rocky to start. There’s no going back to the old routine. I have to create new ones. To clear my head, I can’t just go walk down Lincoln and Ravenswood and to Welles Park. I have to explore and create new ones.
Our immediate space is ready to roll though. And it’s awesome. I’m a particular person who knows what he likes. It can be a bit stressful of course. But now we got this creative space that’s conducive to our production. Ken’s got his animation station set up. I got my table. We got a beautiful bar, vinyl record set up, books all around and, most of all, an 8’ x 4’ whiteboard set up. So much magic is about to happen.
I took nine total trips to haul my stuff to the new apartment and four trips to the thrift store to get rid of things. I feel like that’s a good ratio. If I haven’t used it and probably won’t, just get rid of it. I thought a lot about sunk costs. You have this amount in your head of what you paid for something, so it’s hard to part with it. At the same time, though, there’s a cost to keeping it. It’s a mental cost. Space is an asset. That’s why I’ve meditated everyday, or close to, for the last year and a half. Emptiness is valuable. Empty physical space is quite useful. People often look at space as a tangible thing. I can put more stuff here. I gotta fill it because I have it. More and more, I’ve discovered that intangibles, in people and things, are more valuable.
After I moved everything, I went back to clean my old apartment. As I finished, I ran into Jerry, the maintenance guy. Love that guy. We chatted for a bit and he was sad I was leaving. We grew a relationship, but I imagine he also loved how low maintenance I was too. In seven years, I might have asked for something three times? I remember right before the 4th of July weekend a couple years ago we hung out in the basement storage and drank beers together. Always good to see Jerry. That’s the community feel I’ll miss. Knowing your neighbors and Moses the mailman and community. Those things take time and that was seven years.
That night I returned to my empty apartment with a cigar and a bottle of bourbon. While in the backyard, I anticipated reminiscing about all the memories over the last seven years. It didn’t happen that way. Instead, I thought about how excited I am right now and how bright the future is. I’m right where I need to be, and that itself is a testament to the old apartment. It got the job done. It got me to the present, which is filled with joy and meaning and hope.
Life transitions are a signal to us about our personal growth. They serve as markers or chapters in our lives and create an awareness of ourselves on our journey. Each person has the ability to make individual choices that will determine where that journey will lead them. When you empower yourself and those around you, you will write your own chapters rather than them written for you. And it will be beautiful because beauty is subjective. What’s beautiful to you?