As my cart-full of Tostito’s Pizza rolls, Doritos, and chip dip inched forward on the Safeway conveyor belt, I Snapchatted the scene to my friend Alisa.

“Alex is coming to San Francisco?” Alisa responded immediately.

Many things had changed since Alex, Alisa, and I became best friends in the fourth grade, but Alex’s snack preferences was not one of them.

“Yeah, for Halloween,” I replied to Alisa. “Jenny and Lizzie too. It’s the ‘Skokie in San Francisco’ weekend.”

When my friends landed later that night, I was circling the airport in a Honda Fit Getaround rental. My friends had never been to California before and the moment they got in the car, we were giddy.

“Alissa, what are all of these hills?!” my friends exclaimed, phones up to the window as we rode through south of the city. “Are they everywhere? Do you live on a hill? What car are we in?”

I twirled my knowledge of the Bay Area geography as my friends Snapchatted every corner of it. So this is what it feels like to be the driver of the Magic Schoolbus, I thought.

Alex was so full of observations about the landscape and questions about the culture, that she didn’t even notice Kanye West’s “We Don’t Care” playing over the speaker. Her enthusiasm fit the setting — this was her first time watching her oldest friend set-up a new life. Still, Alex and I had been friends for so long, I’d forgotten there were still things left for her to see me do.

After my friends dropped their suitcases off at my apartment, they put their coats back on.

“Are you sure you guys don’t wanna wait till tomorrow to see my neighborhood?” I asked.

It was raining, and the weather had been grossing me out all week.

“Are you kidding?” they said. “It’s perfect, it’s just drizzling. It’s been like 30 degrees in Chicago.”

Right, reference points, I thought on the elevator ride down to the lobby. Huddled together under a restaurant covering at the end of my block, the four of us passed a cigarette around.

“Think about what cuisine you want to try while you’re here,” I said. “In this neighborhood we can have fancy Indian, fancy comfort food, Korean BBQ…”

“Let’s go to In N’ Out,” my friends said. “We saw the special sauce on Instagram.”

Jenny tossed the cigarette to the side, and I grinned. This weekend I’d be excused from pretending I’d eaten at the neighborhood hot spots, as I usually felt obligated to do with the San Franciscans. We headed back upstairs for a Pizza Roll feast.

A classic mix-up at the San Francisco Zoo

The next day after work, my friends arrived in front of my office in an Audi convertible. They’d spent the afternoon at the zoo.

“Getaround is pretty good,” they said. “Chicago needs more apps.”

Our route back to my apartment snaked along the Northern edge of the peninsula, and for most of the ride, nobody spoke. The bridge, the water, the Marin coast — they all felt bigger, more open, more cohesive than ever before. It was like seeing the Bay for the first time. Finally surrounded by people with whom I’d been on other meaningful car rides, I submitted myself to the view.

Was this how the rest of the city always saw SF?

When Alex stopped for gas, I accompanied her out to the tank. Lizzie and Jenny stayed in the car.

“What the hell were you guys doing at the zoo anyways?” I asked Alex.

“We heard it was famous,” Alex said.

“That’s the San Diego Zoo, you idiot,” I said.

“I know that now,” Alex said. “But don’t tell Lizzie and Jenny. They still don’t know. Even though the zoo was so bad, they were convinced it was special.”

I was in stitches — at the classic mix-up and at the sudden commitment I felt to preserving this alternate reality. It reminded me of the years following Lollapalooza 2011, when Alisa and I recounted to everyone all of the acts we saw, even though our failed sneak-in attempt actually landed us at the McDonald’s next to Grant Park.

Pointless fabrication was a favorite pastime of Skokie natives.

The Cubs only made the World Series when I moved to California

Game 5 of the World Series began in twenty minutes, so we dropped off the Audi and walked to a restaurant with a TV.

“So, did you get your med-card yet?” my friends asked after we placed our appetizer order.

“No, Alisa told me they can use that against you,” I said. “Like if I’m in court or something.”

“Alisa doesn’t know,” they shook their heads.

When the Cubs scored their first run, we cheered and hi-fived. I swallowed hard, thinking about how it must be back home: everyone rallied around the same happening, getting together in bars and apartment living rooms, and discussing the game in little groups at the office the next day.

Home wasn’t on hold, I thought. It was still happening, and I was missing it.

For hours, the four of us sat at the table ordering way more menu items than we could afford. Our age-old rhythm was being played out on the main stage of adulthood, and it confirmed what I’d always suspected: either we’d always been adults, or we’d always be kids. Practicalities, such as bank accounts and the temporary nature of the reunion, had faded from view.

When the game ended, we stopped back at my apartment to change into our Alice in Wonderland costumes, before heading to a Warehouse party in Oakland.

The Uber dropped us off in front of the address listed on the event ticket; it was a residential house on an empty street. Unsure of how to proceed, we poked our heads into a few backyards, before gathering in the parking lot at the end of the block.

“I like Oakland,” the Cheshire Cat said, passing around a pint of Hennessy. “It seems more ghetto.”

“Yeah, and not so many Korean people,” the Queen of Hearts said. “It was so weird seeing them everywhere in San Francisco.”

“What the hell dude, you’re Korean,” I said. “It’s weird seeing your own people?”

“It’s OK if I’m expecting it, like at church or whatever,” the Queen replied. “Otherwise…it’s awkward.”

The Cheshire Cat giggled and lit a cigarette. Why was it that we never seemed to care if we got where we were going?

“Damn you guys,” the Mad Hatter looked up from her phone suddenly. “These tickets say 47th avenue. We’re on 47th street.”

The Queen downed the rest of the pint as the Mad Hatter called our Uber. It was only a few minutes away.

Alex’s heroics fade into goodbye

As we neared the front of the line at the Warehouse, I ruffled through my bag in disbelief. My ID was nowhere to be found — a party foul which I hadn’t committed in years. Still, something about the night implied that formalities had been temporarily suspended.

I backed away from the bouncer and dialed Alex’s number.

“I don’t have my ID,” I told her. My friends had already cleared security.

“Look on the ground,” she replied.

I scanned the area and spotted Alex’s ID next to a group of people standing in front of me.

“I saw what was happening and threw it for you,” she said.

The bouncer didn’t even flinch when I picked it up and flashed it towards him.

“What the hell Alex, you have to get on a flight in three hours,” I said when I found my friends on the dance floor. “What if that didn’t work, what if they took away your ID?”

Alex shrugged and bought everyone shots of Hennessy, as Sage the Gemini took the stage for a surprise performance. It went largely unnoticed. We’d formed a circle by the bar with our arms around each other, each one of us using our eyes to communicate the exact some thing.

This is it.

At 3 a.m., my friends loaded their suitcases into the trunk of the Uber in front of my apartment. Their flight was scheduled to leave at 4:30 a.m. After they piled into the backseat, Alex and I caught each other’s eyes. We’d forgotten to hug.

“I didn’t know it was going to be like this,” I said when she got back out of the car.

“It’s OK,” Alex said as we hugged. “Next time you’ll know.”

When I decided to move to SF, I’d been fully aware of the tradeoffs. I’d get adventure, growth, and career advancement, at the cost of being a somewhat absent friend and family member. What I didn’t know and could not have known, was how that cost would actually feel.

As the Uber pulled away, I sat down in front of my building. A little residue from Jenny’s pre-Warehouse puke was still visible, and I smiled. This was the spot where we’d waited for all of our Ubers, smoking cigarettes and passing around pints, and now it felt sacred.

To my surprise, the Bay Area was beginning to feel the same way. As I loaded it with experiences like this “Skokie in San Francisco” weekend, the emptiness that had characterized the landscape for so long, began to disappear. Maybe Chicago wasn’t what I’d been missing. Maybe I missed having my home remind me of who I was; having my home be laced with meaning and a sense of history.

My friends helped build my relationship to my new home, I thought on the elevator ride up to the 12th floor, and I’m lucky for that. But after I unlocked the door and threw my white rabbit costume on my futon, I cried. I didn’t want to be apart any longer.