One of the things that always bugs me about watching House Hunters1 is when people talk about how nice it will be to sit and drink coffee in the yard or on a balcony. Oh yes, this is lovely. I can imagine having my morning coffee here.
I’ve been drinking coffee every morning forever, but it’s never a sit-outside-and-enjoy production. I just drink coffee while I’m getting ready for the day. Today, though, I actually sat outside for a few minutes to enjoy my coffee in the yard. It was nice. I mean, it wasn’t so groundbreakingly amazing I’ll do it every day, but it was a pleasant way to spend a few minutes.
This is one of those weeks where I find out about a job opportunity that would result in a radical life change that might be kind of awesome. Move across the country, buy a house for practically nothing, live in a small town, practice law again, be closer to family. Does that sound good or stupid? I’m leaning more toward good, but it’s always hard to conceptualize the downsides of an idealized potential life that’s so different from your life now you can’t even really conceptualize any of it in a reliable manner. My biggest concern is how far we’d have to drive to get good beer. Not that far, it turns out, and we could always stock up.
You can live in a city and not do much because you don’t have much money. You can live in a small town and not do much even if you have money because there’s not much to do. The end result is kind of the same, right?
I’ve never been good at thinking about the future. Even if you asked me about my dreams, I’d be all, huh? Dreams? Even something more specific: Where do I want to be in 10 years? Hell, I’m lucky I know where I want to be tomorrow. I don’t know if it’s that I have a hard time delaying gratification (no future only now) or if it’s that I’ve always felt like it’s a little presumptuous to even assume you have a future (inside my head lurks a live-fast-die-young hypochondriac). And then you think about what you’d think about if you did think about dreams and how that fits with the dreams of your significant other and your kid, who doesn’t even know he has dreams yet but will one day, you hope.
Where are you and who are you and what are you doing when your dreams happen?
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Note
1. This is aside from the other things that bug me about watching House Hunters, which include but are not limited to people who are obsessed with granite countertops (Sidenote: Why do people call them countertops instead of counters? Is referring to them as counters a midwesternism? Does “top” really add anything? Is there secretly plywood under a granite veneer?) and stainless steel appliances, people who “need” man caves, people who look at and purchase McMansions, people who entertain (My parents used to call this “having company.”), people who have a billion dollars to spend on a house, people who talk about how perfectly good and cute kitchens and bathrooms will have to be gutted, and pretty much everything ever except other poor people buying hovels.