Moving

Hi, Deniro!

You can keep eating your peanut butter Kong for this. I just wanted to say hi and see how you’re doing. I’m up early, a concept that you don’t understand because time in general is a mystery to you and also getting you up to get you to go on your morning walk was indeed a challenge.

Moving is a strange thing. Our ancestors (people ancestors, not wolves) were hunter gatherers. They were by and large nomadic people so there wasn’t one physical or geographical location that they called “home.” But as we figured out farming, we decided to settle down as a species and stick to one fertile plot of land. We built things, we spent generations in one spot. That is a strange idea for me.

Moving as always been a part of my life. There was an understanding that moving was inevitable for any number of reasons. My mom wanting a better life for us and moving us from Rock Island to Chicago when we were young, before that, moving from one shit hole house to another, depending on where the rent was cheapest. There’s a difference between moving by choice, though. A big one. In my adult life, post college, I’ve lived in 7 apartments. You lived in 5 (two of which you lived in part time since your dad and I shared custody of you). I believe you knew you were in a “different” place each time, but really all you cared about what that we were with you. It was about the people of the place and not the place of the place.

Moving was not the same for me. Each decision to move in adulthood ranged from dramatic to downright silly in most cases. My first apartment after college was this very nice two bedroom in Edgewater. Your dad found it. I still remember him calling me when I was walking to class in the English building senior year of college to tell me he thought he found a place. Then calling me again when I was in class (I stepped outside, I’m not rude), to tell me we got the place. I hadn’t seen it, but he wouldn’t have chosen badly so I was excited.

Moving into that place on Granville, was such a surreal experience. I had the distinct feeling that with that apartment, I would start a different kind of life. I was living with a boy, I would find a job, I would be an adult?

We only lived in Granville for a year. Looking back, I don’t actually remember why we moved out. I think they offered for us to buy it (which wasn’t financially possible), and we wanted more space? Or perhaps the place felt tainted because we had some of our first blow out fights there. The kind of fight that feels dirty. Icky. Cuts through to you and whether you like it or not, the kind of fight you hold onto, that you build resentment over. You may not understand the word resentment. It’d be like you having a feeling that caused you to withhold love from us because we disciplined you for stealing an entire cheeseburger off a plate. The cheeseburger looked so good! And no one was eating it at the time! Why would you punish me?! And those thoughts over that specific cheeseburger would spiral in your little doggy head until, over time, you stopped wanting to snuggle with us. That’s resentment.

The place was definitely tainted. So off we went. To a beautiful loft in Lincoln Park. We loved this place immediately, even though getting it was sketchy. It was listed by a company called Quantum Apartments that was housed in a shady storefront on Western Avenue, definitely a cover for something and quite possibly only in existence for money laundering. We paid the deposit in cash (that was preferred), and signed a “lease” that we assumed was legally binding, but at the time couldn’t say for sure. Ok, so remember the time that you were walking up the stairs with your dad, and you saw a man coming down the stairs and he looked normal, but you growled viciously? That feeling that caused you to growl, that instinct that something was off? That was Quantum Apartments.

In the end, the actual apartment was fine, apart from the never-ending-pee smell from the previous tenant’s dog. There was also a weird poo smell coming from the bathroom at all times. But I guess you could partly blame that on us. And you! You came into my life when I lived on Clybourn and you definitely contributed to the poo smell.

We lived in Lincoln Park on Clybourn for about a year and a half, when we decided to move to a smaller place, downsize so we could have extra money for travel. Simplify our lives, we said. Save up, we said. Truth was, Clybourn had started to feel like too much. I don’t know if you remember this, but it was 2,300 square feet of space. It was long and big and you used to bolt from one end to the other when you got the zoomies. You also did not have brakes, so there were frequently saliva smudges on walls where you slammed into them with your drooling face.

It also felt like too much because man, oh man, was that a hard time for me and your dad. If Granville was where the first blow ups happened, Clybourn was where the resentment (remember, the cheeseburger) set in. In such a large space, you may not be surprised to hear that it’s pretty easy to live as distant roommates rather than husband and wife. Oh yeah! We got married while we were living at Clybourn.

The decision was made. We were moving to Rogers Park, to a large one bedroom a block from the lake and Lunt Avenue Beach. This, my sweet doggy, was where you spent your formative years. Moving with a dog was different. We had to first make sure you were allowed to live there (this may shock you, buddy, but some landlords don’t like dogs because you destroy things and are terrible sometimes). I remember when you first got introduced to the place. We brought you over one time before the movers came. It was empty, and you ran in and sniffed every corner as an inspection. Then you shook your butt in approval and it felt like we’d made the right choice.

I know this isn’t how it works with you, but I like to think that Rogers Park is your true home. The lake, the playtime each morning with a pack of other dogs along the beach, the freedom of not having to be on a leash all the time, knowing that if you ran out your back door and down the alley, you’d be at the beach, having lots of time with your dad during the day to hang and chill. It was a dog’s paradise. That is one of the reasons the apartment on Sheridan Road was so special.

It was also cheap. $900 a month split two ways. Though since we had two cars and no parking spots, I’m pretty sure we spent about $400 a month on parking tickets. Oh, a parking ticket is someone punishing you for parking your car where it doesn’t belong, as determined by the great and powerful City of Chicago. It’d be like you getting fined food for sitting on the ottoman that you were not supposed to sit on, but always sat on, then eventually chewed so it had to be thrown out. Imagine each time you sat on the ottoman, you didn’t get breakfast. Horrible, isn’t it?

The apartment on Sheridan Road in Rogers Park ran so deep. During that time we had some milestones (an actual wedding ceremony on Lunt Avenue Beach), we traveled, you started going to doggy daycare (and then stopped going because you couldn’t stop humping other dogs and I was too embarrassed to send you back -- thanks for that), an affair (we can talk about this later), a separation (you might remember this time as when mommy came to visit you every Monday night and we shared meatloaf from The Growling Rabbit), fun, love, more blow ups, name calling, laughter, holes punched in walls, the list goes on.

When I moved out of the apartment on Sheridan Road and into my own place on Wolcott Avenue (the first time I had lived alone as an adult), I missed you. You were over the weight limit so you couldn’t come to visit me and I was too scared to push it at the time. I’m really sorry for that. In hindsight (hindsight is when you look back to an event in the past and see it more clearly, like when you ate the heel off my favorite pair of Frye boots and hid them back in the closet after the offending act so I found them days later -- perhaps you would have instead left them in plain sight? Just a thought), I think there was a reason you were only with your dad at the time. He needed you more. I hurt him really badly, I didn’t think I deserved you.

Moving to Logan Square was a big deal. I did not want to leave the Sheridan Road apartment. After I moved back in (about 9 months after I moved out in the first place), I didn’t want to move again. The act of moving sucks. No way to make it sound like it doesn’t. Packing and purging things. Coordinating movers. Changing the address on the electricity and cable. It’s not like in hunter gatherer times where you just rolled up your shit in a cloth? A large leaf? Threw it on your back and got to moving. We have stuff to move. But alas, one day when your dad was out of town for work, I saw a mouse. Turns out, there was actually a PILE of dead mice under our stove. We immediately started looking.

The loft in Logan Square still gives me pangs in my heart. After four years in Rogers Park, it was a huge change. 1,800 square feet over two floors. Huge windows, sky high ceilings. It was, quite literally, my dream apartment. We moved in on our 5-year wedding anniversary.

When you came in for the first time, you ran around, gave the place a good sniff, and shook your butt with approval. Now that I’m writing it again, I realize this is not a good gauge on whether or not something is good. You weren’t allowed upstairs at the loft on Belden Avenue, because it was carpeted and you were not to be trusted. It was also where our bed was and you had a history of peeing on beds. Seriously? Why did you used to pee on our mattress? Replacing mattresses is so expensive and you were such a little shit for that.

The loft on Belden was a dream, and it also came at an interesting time in our lives. We had better jobs and more money and I felt like an adult. We had also just come off a pretty bad year where I was mean to your dad and he was mean to me and there was talk of divorce. (Divorce would be like you legally choosing not to be our dog anymore.) We had also overcome a lot of shit in our marriage and were on a good path. Just kidding! We were fine, I guess, but I sometimes wonder if you felt the tension. If you could feel when we wouldn’t touch each other. If you could sense the air thick with ickiness. Could you? Dogs are sensitive. Sometimes you’d just come up and snuggle me and it felt like you were telling me it was ok.

You had the world’s best dog walker and doggy daycare when we lived on Belden. You got picked up and went on pack walks with other dogs. You got to walk around and play with other dogs every single day. You loved it. You also started whining when Tony would leave after you got dropped off. That stung, buddy. I was literally standing right there.

Belden ended abruptly. The dream loft was gone in what felt like a flash and 8 months after we moved in, we moved out. I have a good memory. But I don’t remember where you were during that move. The final move. We moved ourselves using a van and our own bodies as labor. Not because we couldn’t afford movers, but because it was important to honor this for what it was by putting our own energy into it. It was a long move. From about 6pm to 2am we loaded and unloaded that van four times. Drove it around the corner in Logan Square to my new place on Milwaukee Avenue, and up north to Uptown to his new place on Hazel Street. It was the kind of night that can beat you if you let it. It was heavy, and it almost felt good to be carrying something because at least you’re still moving.

That night, I slept at your dad’s new place for the first and last time. I still cannot remember where you were. Maybe we had Tony take you. So you could just be in your joy instead of shuffling around with us in our pain and shellshock.

I settled into my new place and started unpacking. When you came over to see our new home, you ran around, sniffed at all the corners, and shook your butt with approval.