It was December of 2005 when my husband and I were talking about moving to San Diego. It sounds like such a pretty place to live - warm beaches and blue skies. Even though the one time we visited there, it was raining the whole time. This was when money was never a worry, credit was flowing, housing was still bubbling – economic crisis was still a whisper.
My very ridiculous, elaborate fantasy was that we would have a house built there. One like you see in those magazines in the check-out lines at the grocery stores. I used to buy those magazines all the time to get an idea of my dream house. The house was big, of course, new, modern, full of light and color. A month later we moved to a town just outside of Boston and bought a 100 year old house that smelled like heating oil.
This house is considered big for this location, but none of the other adjectives of my dream house would apply. It’s definitely not new or modern, but we found a way to add our light and color. Dream house? Oh, absolutely. It still surprises me. How can this be my dream house? It’s so old, and it’s not because of the décor or the architectural design – it’s just in the energy. You can feel the history as you walk through it. Families lived here - loved here. The ghosts still roam the halls, pleased with the company of a new generation.
This house has an inexplicable appeal to it that makes no sense to me. It’s the third house we’ve owned and probably the 20th place I’ve lived in. I’ve never felt this way about any physical location before. The neighbors are nice, but we're not especially close with any of them. I’m not materialistic, and there’s really nothing here that makes the place better or worse than any other place I’ve lived. It just feels right. It feels like I’m supposed to be here.
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