Not my first dream

April 28, 2009

Over the past weekend my mind went to all kinds of places. I usually spend a lot of time fantasizing about my future - a lot. I think I probably do that more than anything else in my alone time. I come up with all kinds of plans and ideas - all kinds.

This past weekend my thoughts turned to our home. After Jeremy and I scattered Harper's ashes last week, we drove through a stretch of the desert to get home taking the back roads. "Wouldn't you love to live out here?" I asked him. I can always see the fear in his eyes when I start asking him "wouldn't you like to . . . " because he knows if he agrees with me we could very well be full-steam ahead on some major life change. He's a good balance for me that way. Anyway . . .

I have this fantasy, I guess it's how I see our future. I picture Jeremy and I with a piece of land out in the desert, just behind the Tucson Mountains (on the west of them). The big backyard would be fenced in so we could have plenty of dogs running and playing back there. The house would be a hacienda style, with our own tiny little pool in the courtyard area, just big enough to jump in and get cool in the summer. The house wouldn't be that big, but we each would have our own room (him for his music, me for my writing), and then a guest room, or really a separate guest house is what is in my fantasy (because lots of places out here have guest houses - I'm not just trying to be fancy). We would wake up in the mornings and sit outside in the courtyard. Our home would be a sanctuary - a quiet, peaceful place. It would be a beautiful place, full of light and animals.

It's so real I can almost taste it. I started thinking through our budget and whether we could afford a move like that. I've already contacted our realtor in my mind and had this conversation with her, "Pat, would you be able to show our house with Django there? I mean, how do you deal with it when there are dogs in the home?" I've thought through all the sacrifices I might have to make living a little further outside of town than we do. I'm picking out tile in my mind (sautillo tile on the floors - tile roof). I'm thinking about what contractor we would use; what of the work we would do ourselves (we tiled all 3 of our bedrooms in our current house). I can picture friends coming over for dinner and sitting at our long wooden Mexican-style table, enjoying the food and the conversation.

So of course what do I do when a fantasy like this becomes so real to me? I start a movin' and a shakin'. I went on-line and started looking up real estate. I got as far as entering the search information on the MLS site and then stopped. I thought about all the energy it would take to do something like this. And I asked myself, "Is this what I really want?" Funny question, right? It obviously sounds like this is what I really want - I get all excited thinking through every little detail of it. But do you know what my answer to myself was? Nope. What I really want, what I wish I was putting all my energy into right now is a baby. I closed out the MLS website and shut down my computer.

I had told Jeremy about my fantasy on our drive back from scattering Harper's ashes. "I could see myself being at peace with something like that, couldn't you?" He said he could. Then he said, "That's a good thing that you can picture that Abby, because if we can't get pregnant, that might be what we end up doing." I guess it's good to have a back-up plan. But when your heart is so set on something, when you have come so close to such a sweet dream being fulfilled, second place feels like you are just trying to fill empty space. It's not a bad dream, it's just not my first dream.

An after thought: I suppose there is nothing saying we can't have both of my dreams, right? Maybe I just don't believe life could really be that good.