Today I am thinking. Today I am thinking about being in Chicago. I’m struggling with guilt, and I hate guilt. I hate feeling like I should be doing things differently. I hate that saying “no regrets” because I cannot be that person. I cannot escape guilt and regret even in the smallest aspects of my life. I know it has everything to do with my struggles with surrendering control to God, but in the midst of this learning process I’m racked with guilt and regret about things most people wouldn’t even think twice about. I love this city and I love this adventure with Justin, but I am someone who almost constantly craves real living and real relationships. I’ve always justified this with one of my favorite quotes from Chris McCandless, something about how happiness not shared isn’t happiness at all. I realize that now everyone shares my emotional attachment to that phrase, but that is me. I feel too much, I think, and that phrase really make me feel. Makes me feel sad. I’ve met so many wonderful people here in this city, but too much of my time is still spent in solitude. As much solitude as you can really find in this city, of course. But overwhelmingly alone, nonetheless. Suffocatingly, claustrophobically, implosively alone. I don’t care if that’s not a word, autocorrect, it is now. So when I look up into a beautiful, clear, blue chicago afternoon sky, I am so grateful and inspired and overwhelmed by God’s goodness and God’s blessings, but I want to share it. I want someone standing next to me in awe of God’s creation with me. I want someone else to feel so massively full of joy and thanksgiving that their eyes well up with tears at the same time that mine do. I need to share my happiness for it to feel real. Is that wrong? Am I missing something? I don’t know. I really don’t. But for everyone who thinks I’m immature, or childish, or just ridiculous for visiting Michigan as much as I do, maybe it will start to make sense. Because we can try to spend a weekend in Chicago exploring and seeing tall buildings and eating new foods and trying new things and walking to new places but sometimes, most times, it’s all moot when we’re not sharing it with anyone. When it’s just between the two of us. What is a new adventure when those you love most aren’t there with you? It’s not that sharing it with each other isn’t enough, it’s that I realize there is more than just us. I guess maybe I can’t explain it well, and my wording leaves a lot to the imagination, but I’d trade this city for people any, and every, day.