Starting Over

Well, tomorrow I start over again. That's how I see it. I start a new job, a new (old) career. I wonder how many times I will have to start again. I know that I am the master of my destiny, more or less. I have made choices in my life that have led me to start over again and again. But still. I guess I'm just waiting and hoping, searching, for the final thing - the final job, the final relationship, the final house in the final city. Is that even possible for me? Would I be happy living a static life?

I was in Borders a couple of weeks ago with Ayden. It was twilight - the time of day I love the most. The evening commute was on, when folks with jobs get home from work, change into comfy clothes, feed the dog or cat, open a bottle of wine and decide what to have for supper. Ayden and I passed by a display of cookbooks. I glanced over at them and suddenly a sharp yearning hit me. I had a vision. I saw myself in the kitchen of my home - some house, somewhere in Dallas maybe. A vintage house, of course. The kitchen was large with an island in the middle, bar stools around, big uncovered windows looking out to a side yard of lush foliage. I was sitting at the island, thumbing through a cookbook, wine glass in hand. I could feel my contentment in that simple moment that to some may seem so ordinary. But it was not ordinary to me. Once upon a time, when my children were small, I had that life.  I remember the green house the most - the big rambling ranch house by the river. The big kitchen with attached "keeping room" - so quaint and cozy, so comforting and sweet. I always cooked, in every house we ever lived in, but for some reason it's the green house I remember most. When the Borders vision faded, I wanted to browse through the cookbooks, but I didn't. That was not my life in the vision, not my kitchen nor my home. I still had a ways to go. I still do.