Little Bike, Big City

Today I bought a bike. I found it while dallying about on Craigslist - a beautiful, light-weight, one-speed road bike with a basket on the front and a bell on the handle. I got it home, hoisted it up a flight of stairs, and carried it across the threshold of my apartment with great gusto and no little amount of perspiration. I placed it in its new spot in the corner of my living room and I can’t stop looking at it. You see, this bike isn’t just a bike; it represents the setting of new roots in a city, of investing in a new life.

Let me backtrack. Two weeks ago, in a long-anticipated day of frenzy, I moved out of my parents' house, which I had been living in since graduating, and into an apartment in Chicago. When I say this event was long anticipated, I mean that I had been looking forward to it since, let’s say junior high. Of course I’ve lived in apartments before, and dorms away from my family, but all of these arrangements came with their own set of limitations and setbacks. Also, due to my tendency to flutter about internationally for study, my living situations for about three years always seemed very temporary. I couldn’t buy anything heavier than I could potentially carry, I was never sure how long I would actually be anywhere, I always said, “When I get my own place I’ll…” So I waited, and waited for a time when I could set up a solid life.

The move from my parents place was somewhat a reluctant one. A year ago, my father had a brain tumor removed – a delicate surgery which also entailed a very lengthy and arduous recovery period. The past year has been a struggle in trying to regain some form of normalcy, and it’s the reason I moved home in the first place. It was good, being able to be there for my family, but while things fell back into place at home, I realized that my own life resembled something of a half constructed jigsaw puzzle – pieces constructed here and there, but no cohesion, no outline and no particularly clear vision of the overall picture.

It was comfortable living at home and searching for jobs because, to be honest, I didn’t actually believe I would be hearing back from any of the places to which I applied. Not because I lacked qualifications, but because any type of life outside my small rural town seemed so very far away. It was depressing, the constant no-answer rejection, but there was also something comforting in the routine of it; and I had far too much time to think about how I might fail if and when I did finally land something.

Of course, I also had a lot of time to contemplate what I actually wanted my life to look like a couple years down the road, and it didn’t entail sitting in my parents' basement. I wanted to live in Chicago, to be in an area full of life, shop at farmers markets, have a job with meaning, a dining room capable of accommodating good friends, and I wanted a bike to ride everywhere. This is of course abstract and ideal, but it’s the way I always pictured myself being happiest in a general sort of way, and it couldn’t have been further from the life I was living.

It’s difficult to pull yourself up and say, “I’m going to make this happen,” when you encounter so many other people striving for the same goals who also are having trouble making it happen. I think that was the worst part; knowing that it wasn’t just me, that so many other young people were and are also struggling to find a job and more importantly a place in a world that promised us everything then fell apart. I slowly began to see that if I didn’t put up a fight, a real fight, things might never change. And I needed to believe that things could change. Though the thought of leaving my parents filled me with guilt, I also knew that the situation was stable enough for me to move on, and it was time. I began casually looking for apartments, then after a couple weeks, urgently looking. I set a deadline to be out by June. And I was.

I wish I could say mine is a story that ties up neatly, but what in life ever does? Currently still looking for employment, I still have waves of panic and uncertainty wash over me. But I am not dejected, not in the least. I have a bike, a basil plant, and whatever furniture I could scrounge off moving relatives and, for me, that’s a darn good start. This has been my first big (non-education based) life decision, and I feel more actualized hanging out here on a limb. Now every day I remember: I have something to lose and something to fight for.