My parents live thirty-five miles northwest of Chicago, but it might as well be a different country. Or, the country.
I just returned to the city after five days at my parents’ house. They were filled with holiday festivities, eating and naps. I took Friday off of work to help make brunch for my grandmother’s 90th birthday, so my dad asked me if I wanted to join him at the local YMCA for a swim. I agreed, so long at it was not a 7:00 AM wake up call.
We headed to the Y at about 10:00. “Do you have an extra lock for me?” I asked, as we prepared to leave. “What do you need a lock for?” my dad replied. I looked at him. “For my stuff?” I said with a tone of “duh” in my voice. “No one is going to take it,” he replied and that was the end of it.
I tried again in the Y parking lot. “Seriously, what I am I going to do with my wallet, my clothes?” “Leave your wallet in the car.” “Are you going to lock the car?” “No one is going to take it,” again was the reply. “What about my clothes?” “Who’s going to want your clothes?” He had a point. I’ve had that sweatshirt since mid-college.
As we walked in, he sighed. “You can use the Girls locker room instead of the Womens’. There’s less people in there; if you are worried about your stuff.”
I found an out-of-the-way locker - the one most people would choose last, only if all the other lockers were taken. I folded my clothes and place them neatly in the locker. I took a last look at my new Converse tennis shoes, feeling a little sad at the thought of them being stolen.
I met my dad at the pool and we swam laps. “Now this is the part where I do leg lifts,” he said at the deep end of the pool. We clung to the side of the pool and I mirrored his actions, lifting my legs up and down until he indicated it was enough. At the middle of the pool, we stopped again. “Now we exercise our ankles, here where the bottom starts to slope.” Again I mirrored him. After a time, we ran in place lifting our knees as high as possible. After several more laps, we were done with our workout.
“No one took anything?” my dad said when we met in the lobby. “Is your wallet still there?” he asked again when we got to the car. No one took anything and my wallet was still there. The twinkle in his eye conveyed how silly he thought my concerns were.
I’ve been robbed four times; all times were car break-ins. The first time it took me months to get over the violation I felt from having something of mine taken from me. Living in the city, leaving something out, unlocked is a virtual request to have it taken from you. After living in a city environment for ten years, it is hard to readjust to a simpler time. One where you can leave your car running in your driveway for over ten minutes or where you don’t have to lock up your stuff at the local Y. What is harder still is realizing that world still exists somewhere. Somewhere thirty-five miles from here.