I had this moment today, inside my head. I was thinking about my first week in Chicago. I was at a bar with my bestie. We were having drinks and celebrating my new life in the city. The guy next to me decided to chat me up. He had lived in Chicago for nearly 10 years. He was a displaced Tennessean who found himself in a city that was too big and too angry for his liking. He had made the decision to move back home and was, himself, celebrating his last day in Chicago.
I remember he was confused by how utterly "sweet" I was. He would ask my bff if I was for real, or if that was an act. It wasn't. I was sweet to a fault and once he understood that I was genuine, he imparted these words of advice... "don't let this city change you".
I think it was only a week later, that the extreme amount of empathy and sympathy I carried, was quickly drained out of me by the cruelness of the city. I stood in line at the coffee shop and tried ordering some confusing coffee concoction for my girlfriend, to which I had gotten incorrect. While I was flustered, the annoyed Barista made it known to the entire impatient crowd of patrons that I'm a moron. I came back to the car with a regular coffee and tears that drenched my face and my little soft hearted soul developed it's first callous. My bestie replied, "you'll get used to it."
It took me a year to get used to it. People were cruel and I developed one solid festering callous after another. I had an epiphany that I was no longer the super sweet girl that my ex used to cater to after I found myself yelling at a cabbie for treating me like I was a tourist who didn't know the difference between Wacker and Western.
I have become a product of my surroundings, much less congenial and much more cynical.
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