It's 10AM on Sunday. I had an 8AM downtown tour (it was AWESOME, they always are, I'm telling you, go on an early morning tour) and I was really surprised how many drunk people there are at 10AM downtown on a Sunday.
It is a holiday weekend, but wow. In just the Metra station, I have seen drunk boys in the Popeye's yelling at middle-aged women (me) passing by. Then in the Starbucks there's this girl...woman...20-something, she's got a breakfast sandwich and a coke and she's in this huge leopard coat and she has copper red dyed hair and lots of eye makeup on and she's taking up space with her energy and she's talking on the phone.
And she has ended up in Chicago, she has no idea how. I can tell she's drunk and she's telling her friend that she ended up here, she doesn't know how, she's drunk and she's getting back on a train to Indiana at 10:45.
We were watching Maury the other day and all these men and women were yelling and screaming and punching and I just find it so hard to believe that people lead lives like this.
My life is so not like this.
And I know I won the lottery, I know I did. I had a nice family and a nice education and nice friends and I have a nice husband and I am absolutely the 1%.
But also, Margaret herself, is a really middle-ground person. I protect myself from "feelings." It's part of the reason I don't want children, that's too much emotion, I'm not interested in that. And sometimes I wonder, sometimes, if my life is boring, or maybe I'm not tasting enough or "loving" enough or experimenting enough or stretching life to it's edges enough...
and then I hear leopard-coat girl saying she ran out of her house because she couldn't take it anymore and got drunk and doesn't even know Chicago and no, there is no one to pick her up at the train station in Indiana once she gets there....
And I'm, not grateful, but aware that lives like that, that much emotion and chaos, do really exist and how aware I am that my life is not like that. And more and more, as I get older of course, it gets less and less like that every day. Boring? Maybe. Safe and sound? Absolutely.
It is a holiday weekend, but wow. In just the Metra station, I have seen drunk boys in the Popeye's yelling at middle-aged women (me) passing by. Then in the Starbucks there's this girl...woman...20-something, she's got a breakfast sandwich and a coke and she's in this huge leopard coat and she has copper red dyed hair and lots of eye makeup on and she's taking up space with her energy and she's talking on the phone.
And she has ended up in Chicago, she has no idea how. I can tell she's drunk and she's telling her friend that she ended up here, she doesn't know how, she's drunk and she's getting back on a train to Indiana at 10:45.
We were watching Maury the other day and all these men and women were yelling and screaming and punching and I just find it so hard to believe that people lead lives like this.
My life is so not like this.
And I know I won the lottery, I know I did. I had a nice family and a nice education and nice friends and I have a nice husband and I am absolutely the 1%.
But also, Margaret herself, is a really middle-ground person. I protect myself from "feelings." It's part of the reason I don't want children, that's too much emotion, I'm not interested in that. And sometimes I wonder, sometimes, if my life is boring, or maybe I'm not tasting enough or "loving" enough or experimenting enough or stretching life to it's edges enough...
and then I hear leopard-coat girl saying she ran out of her house because she couldn't take it anymore and got drunk and doesn't even know Chicago and no, there is no one to pick her up at the train station in Indiana once she gets there....
And I'm, not grateful, but aware that lives like that, that much emotion and chaos, do really exist and how aware I am that my life is not like that. And more and more, as I get older of course, it gets less and less like that every day. Boring? Maybe. Safe and sound? Absolutely.
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