In addition to feeling as though all my efforts to get where I want to be are futile (and therefore, I am futile), I'm also very sensitive to space.

I have a theory as to why I have this sensitivity, but I won’t get into it right now.  A new town, city, state, area, etc. is like a new art gallery: to be thoroughly explored and encountered and absorbed.  Travel is very appealing to me because of this, and I’m very particular about where I call home.  This is why relocating from the MidWest to the SouthWest is so integral to me, whatever resonates in that space also resonates in me.  It’s not something I can articulate verbally very well, so it’s a good thing I’m an artist!

Chicago is my birthplace, my family is from Mauston, WI.  I’ve only ever lived in Chicago, Milwaukee, Madison, and Savanna IL.  Although it makes me sick to think on my nearly 28 years spent in the same place, the MidWest is part of my identity.  Although a part of me will always be a MidWesterner (and I’ll probably move back at some point in life), finally leaving the area involves a sacrifice.  While I was applying, interviewing, and being told that I’d get hired in the SouthWest, I was willing to give up the large portion of my MidWesterrn identity in order to take on a SouthWestern one - the one I want.

Although I’ll be living with the person I want to live with and I’ll be glad to finally leave the MidWest, moving to Nashville still sacrifices that MidWestern identity.  I won’t move as the same person, I won’t be in the same space nor in the space that I prefer.  This honestly isn’t to poop on Southerners; it’s me and it’s the area.  The South doesn’t resonate like how I resonate.

And if I’m incapable of attaining what I want, no matter how hard I work, do I deserve the identity and area that I want anyway?