Revertigo

One my Thanksgiving drive to Springfield (from my parent's current home farther South) I heard Diddy's "Coming Home" and laughed at the cheesiness of it all.  This was likely because I was by myself in a car for three hours.

Then a DJ talked about "revertigo."  It is basically the experience of regressing in age based on circumstance.  For example, when a 20-something goes home to his parents' over the holidays he may stay in his childhood bedroom, sleep in his old bed, see high school friends.  For this brief time, we transport ourselves into a past moment as if we can pick up life right where we left it.  My Wednesday before Thanksgiving was no exception as I cheerfully hugged the people that have defined my best memories for the greater part of the last decade.  Throughout the good and the not-so-good, I embrace these friendships more than any others.

Surprisingly, Southern Illinois brings on these feelings of revertigo more than Springfield.  Southern Illinois was a weird time in my life.  At 18, I graduated high school and was ready to start college at a school where I knew no one.  I chose this last part for myself, to be different from my peers, and take a risk.  Even for someone who was familiar with being the "new kid," I was terrified.  Then, my parents packed up our lives and moved three hours south from the city where I called home for 18 years (outside of a two year stint in Missouri).  Three weeks before I left for St. Louis, "my parent's house" was not my own.  Labor Day weekend I came home from college and drove two miles past the new neighborhood.  I stopped in a parking lot and cried at the overwhelming feelings of being in too many new places at once.  I missed my old life.

Somehow, that experience shaped me stronger than I would ever imagine.  I waitressed and made a small fortune for a 19-year-old living with her parents, made mistakes, hung out with people I definitely shouldn't have, "posted up" and ate Wendy's after work, dated boys with trucks AND camouflage (sometimes even together).  I went through a couple phases of bad friends and worse boys, until I finally found own niche.  I became close with girls from college whom also called the area home, found Jamie as she always made me laugh and became a sweet hearted partner in crime, indulged in $3 pitcher nights every Wednesday, and enjoyed a July 4th scavenger hunt and picnic I will never forget.  Through it all, I became closer with my family as those three were the only constant in this whole strange situation.

So when I was driving down Route 13 on my way to Carbondale, listening to "Dirt Road Anthem," I experienced the ultimate revertigo.  It brought back memories of being 20 years old with few cares in the world other than living from Cracker Barrel paycheck to paycheck, driving my boyfriend's beat up pick up truck with Jamie as we sang along to whatever radio station we could find during the most fun scavenger hunt of our lives.

Now when I go back to "my parent's house" (as I call it now), it's all different.  My close friends, the one from college, aren't there and we've all moved on from that life.  I let some friendships fall through the cracks and wonder how their lives evolved.  Oddly enough, the moving experience I once described as "one of the worst things to ever happen to me" turned out to be one of the best.  It made me grow up and redefine myself, leading to some of the most genuinely happy experiences I could find.

Cards and Cubs, the I-55 Series

"The Red Sox and Yankees is a tabloid-filled soap opera about money and ego and sound bites. But the Cubs and Cardinals are about... geography and territorial rights." - Buzz Bissinger, Three Nights in August

To start, I am from Springfield, Illinois and extremely proud of it. Land of Lincoln. The kick off point of Barack Obama's presidential campaign Booyah. I find it impossible to believe that anyone outside of this area can appreciate this post for all its worth. This is about the I-55 series or, if you're still reveling in the pre-Eisenhower era, Route 66. However, keep reading because I do not have many followers.

Two words and two worlds: Cardinals, Cubs. Central Illinois is the Berlin Wall of baseball rivalries. I chose West Germany.

Sure, Chicago will blabber on about Sox and Cubs, Southside Northside, whatever I get it and I don't really care. Your fate was primarily decided on your neighborhood, central Illinois isn't like that. We are conservative and liberal, Christian and Lutheran, right-brain and left-brain. Gray area. Boggles your mind. Above all - there is a choice and it is guaranteed you will choose against someone you love very dearly.

Beginning at childhood your world is turned upside down and the manipulation begins by adults pursuing you to sway towards the bright light.

Concerned adult: "Who do you like better, the Cardinals or the Cubs?"
Ignorant child: "I like both?"
Now exasperated adult: "YOU CAN'T LIKE BOTH."

I chose Cardinals. Well Dad chose Cardinals and what four-year-old chooses against Dad? Especially when this Dad had a mustache. I absolutely watched the Cubs' afternoon games with my Grandma and swayed to Harry Caray's drunken rendition of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame." Some of the best memories of my life. For me though, trips to St. Louis took a day and we frequented the Arch City often. Score one for the Cards. The tradition of losing by an unsaid team probably helped solidify this lasting allegiance. Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa in '96. Enough said.

This excerpt is from George Will at a commencement address at Washington University in St. Louis - down the street from my own alma mater at SLU. If you don't know who George Will is, and I will carefully let it slide if you don't, he is a Pulitzer prize winning journalist with a history at both the Washington Post and Newsweek. He was also referenced in "The Jimmy" episode of Seinfeld but that's either here, nor there.

"I grew up in Champaign, Illinois, midway between Chicago and St. Louis. At an age too tender for life-shaping decisions, I made one. While all my friends were becoming Cardinals fans, I became a Cub fan. My friends, happily rooting for Stan Musial, Red Schoendienst, and other great Redbirds, grew up cheerfully convinced that the world is a benign place, so of course, they became liberals. Rooting for the Cubs in the late 1940s and early 1950s, I became gloomy, pessimistic, morose, dyspeptic and conservative. It helped out of course that the Cubs last won the World Series in 1908, which is two years before Mark Twain and Tolstoy died. But that means, class of 1998, that the Cubs are in the 89th year of their rebuilding effort, and remember, any team can have a bad moment."

Amen sir.