Let me explain.

A friend of mine was getting married in Chicago, but it coincided with my wife’s 15 year high school reunion.  She really wanted to go to that and see how many of her classmates had been incarcerated in the intervening decade and a half, and we were both unsure about what to do with our kids at a wedding in Chicago.  We could obviously bring them, but it greatly limits the fun of a wedding

“Whoops!  8:30.  Gotta go get the kids to bed.  Let me know if the cake is any good and who the crazy girl in the red dress ends up leaving with.”

So, after some debate, it was decided that Sarah would take the kids up to her parent’s house for her High school reunion and I would go to the wedding….

BY MYSELF!

Wow!

I don’t really even remember how to use those words accurately in a sentence – “by myself.”   - “At the movie, I was eating ‘by myself’, the popcorn.”   Hmmm, I’ll have to google it or something.

So for the first time in a decade or so, I was off for a weekend of fun with some friends in an exciting city.  I spent the first hour and a half after I got off the plane in C-town walking around singing that old Frank Sinatra song that always sounds like it was poorly translated from the original Italian – “My kind of town, Chicago is…”  I’m sure I was very popular with the locals, who probably appreciated my extensive knowledge of their cultural heritage.

I arrived with a couple of my friends and we set out to explore the windy city.  Now here’s the deal, though.  My friends were an unmarried couple who regularly take fun coupley trips to resorts and spas and places like that.  I, on the other hand, am a stay at home dad who regularly takes trips to Chik-fil-a and Target with three kids in tow.  So, while they were content to casually walk the streets, complete in the knowledge that they have been here before and would probably be back again, I was trying to squeeze all of the entertainment I could into the next 36 hours.

“Hey!  Let’s ride the Ferris wheel.  Or maybe we should take a segway tour.  Do you want to go see some improv later tonight?  I’ve heard the pizza here is supposed to be really good.  Maybe we should go to the top of the Hancock tower observatory.  We could wander Michigan Avenue and look at some shops.  How about we rent bikes and ride along lakeshore drive?  The art museum is supposed to be excellent!  Ever since reading ‘Devil in the White City’ I’ve wanted to visit the site of the Columbian Exhibition.  Should we take one of those boat tours?  What about those Frank Lloyd Wright houses?  We could do a lake cruise, or maybe one of those architecture cruises.  Hey look!  Cotton Candy!”

So, I’m afraid I was a bit of a pest.  I just knew my time was short.  It was kind of like if you were told you only had a day to live, what would you do?  In my case, it was as if you were told you only had a day to live as a single, childless person with no real responsibility for anyone else.  I just wanted to suck the marrow out of life.  I didn’t even really care which marrow, or what it tasted like.  I just wanted to get busy sucking.

So we did.  We rode the Ferris wheel and walked Michigan Avenue (I bought some shorts!).  We drank beer and ate some pretty terrible nachos overlooking the river.  We rode the El, ate Indian food, went to a terribly hip bar which ended up making me feel terribly unhip (although maybe that’s because while the techno music thumped overhead, I was huddled in a corner trying to help the bride write her vows).  We would have ridden segways and taken the boat tours, but apparently you have to make reservation for those kinds of things in advance (stupid organized tourists).  But the art museum was great, the view from the Hancock building was spectacular, and in general, my kind of town, Chicago is.

Oh yeah, the wedding was pretty nice too.

All in all, it was a pretty great weekend of marrow sucking.  I’m not sure people without kids can quite understand the freedom that comes with pretending that once again you are in your twenties and only have to worry about yourself.  It’s one of those luxuries that you don’t realize you have until it’s gone. 

Don’t get me wrong, I love my kids.  I missed them and I spent most of the wedding thinking about how my daughter will someday be walking down the aisle in a white dress and I desperately wished my wife’s name was listed beside mine on our seating card.  But, think of it this way.  I also love my house, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t want to travel back in time and spend a weekend living in my old, tiny, cramped college dorm with the shared bathroom. 

So, truly, it was a great weekend.  One with too little sleep to match the too much fun.  But then Sunday rolled around and that wasn’t so much fun.  I’ll detail that in tomorrow’s blog.  One I’m calling:  “And then I was 52.”