A dream I lost today

I was really down today because the condo I had been planning to buy on the banks of the Willamette River in Portland, Oregon was sold. Condos that were similar, though not as perfect, were still on the market but for a lot more money. I wanted my 180 degree view of the river and the marina below, near the biking and walking trails littered with wildflowers and tall grasses that led to Cottonwood Cove, a beach laden with water soaked logs for climbing and smooth stones for skipping.

I had pictured myself waking up in the morning and taking my bike from the closet to ride out my door and along the river path, where you can grab a handful of Brown eyed Susans or those wild faintly pink roses that grow with abandon in my hometown. I want to be able to roll out of bed in the morning and pull on some sweats and a t-shirt and slide the canoe from the top of the car into the water for a morning paddle. Maybe we'll even have a small skiff or sailboat moored in the marina below that I could take for a spin. I want to read the paper from the deck of my home and breath in the smell of river air and rain over the eggs my lover has made for me. I want to love my partner in that room with the 180 degree view of the water and the mountains, knowing we are finally in the place we are meant to be, living as we should.

I'm not interested in retiring, oh no. I will still engage in life. I picture myself taking the tram into town to work and back or to shop and back or to the doctor's office and back. I long to *not* drive my car for a year, and have it not be a burden, because I don't need to.

You must agree that the life I envision appears divine? So, you can see why I slumped around most of the rest of the day based on this feeling of loss for a place I had never lived in and a life I had never had. But, I'm a regrouper. My heart skipped a beat and a smile spread over my face when I started looking at other properties in Bellingham and Whidby Island, WA, and one in particular that I loved on the banks of a meandering creek in Salida, CO. I convinced myself that the specific locale wasn't what I needed, it was a home with a particular aesthetic, and that aesthetic had a lot to do with water, and living near an informed town center, and of course the west. Don't forget the west. Don't forget freedom. This has a lot to do with freedom.

I guess that all of this would make sense if the plans I made were based in any way in reality, but they aren't, and I know it. This is all a part of a game I play with myself lately called "transporting myself anywhere but here," or "living the life I am entitled to but can't," or "walking and swimming just outside your door in a temperate climate."

Or I would be happy, if only...children, my spouse, grandchildren, my mother and my job were transported somewhere else and some of them were something that they're not.