new environs

I've been wanting to update now for quite awhile. Since moving to Chicago approx. 1.5 months ago, too many changes have probably taken place to even begin to mention. However, I was musing today about how...the flow of jumping into life here has felt unnaturally...natural. Today was probably the first day where I felt a little lost, not geographically (that has happened at least a few times) but in general. I've called so many places home in the past five years or so, it seems my own skin is the only place that really houses me(although, that is not entirely true either). What would it be like to actually...settle in a place? And what does that even mean?

I am fairly crafty...I can "domesticate" a space (just ask my roommate. I have provided our home with much curiously beautiful driftwood :). Finding the neighborhood grocery, a favorite cafe, watching the leaves change and fall off the trees that line the streets...I guess these are all parts of settling in too. Meeting people, with the intention of more than knowing a face and a name. I don't think that settling means the same thing to everyone, of course. I was having coffee with a friend who is making a move to Cleveland (ironically), and I asked her how long she was planning on staying. "Oh, not forever. Three to five years, maybe," she said. I had to laugh out loud because I say the same thing about living in Chicago--anything more than five years would seem like eternity. Is my generation full of commitmentaphobes, or is it just me and my friends? (On a side note, today on Sunday morning with George Stephanopolis, my generation was referred to as Generation O, as in Obama. I def. am all about my generation ushering in our new Pres. but I sort of resent folks changing up my generation's identity every few years. Just saying.)

Anyhow, I don't really know about any of this settling stuff. I hope and pray that I will always be open to going where the Lord leads. I guess that includes being lead to stay.