Small town in front, private park in back–couldn’t be more perfect.

I didn’t mention my hopes last blog but this was the “impossible house” I was imagining as I outlined my wish list for the house search:  it was on the market, but for a variety of reasons I couldn’t make an offer YET, I didn’t have my ducks in a row. My heart was broken. Forget the house:  this was everything I ever wanted in a yard.  It stretches WAY back–to include a little wooded area.  I dreamed of English gardens on the back half with a path winding through.

And a white gazebo.

But sadly it came on the market before I was anywhere near ready! My radius of search was SO TINY–what were the odds I’d find another that fit every desire?

THEN, with a little help from friends and family and a great realtor and mortgage broker who did magic, and after I had given up all hope, darned if those ducks didn’t line up like first-rate soldiers.  Straightened up and quacked right. It was a mad race in this seller’s market to make that offer before anyone beat me to it.  And here I am, over my head financially perhaps, but a half acre of my own to live out and retire in my second half century on earth.

I’m normally fiscally cautious:  head down, move along, play it safe.  But the few times in my life I’ve taken that leap of faith into the abyss of financial uncertainty, it’s been SPECTACULAR.  It’s not like I have any innate intuition, and my timing sucks more than anyone you’ve ever met, but I seemed to have it when it counted.

Such as the day my dad kept asking me in disbelief, “Why are you PACKING? You don’t have the tuition!” –for grad school, well, had I not pushed on in a kind of delusional trance I’d never have gotten that full-ride assistantship and fellowship the day before classes began.

I keep waiting for the spectacular leap to fail me. . .Check back in a couple years when the dust settles.  Because it’s all or nothing now.

Here’s the blank canvas, a writer’s retreat in the middle of town.  I know I’m lucky, but just like always, it’s going to be a lot of work to make luck stick.