Thanks, Craigslist

Some people use Craigslist as a way to buy used stuff locally, look for jobs, see if they have any MISSED CONNECTIONS (Why wasn't this available when I was in high school? On second thought, I am sooooooo glad it wasn't, because I would have read it obsessively imagining someone REALLY WANTED TO MEET UP with my introverted high school self).

I use Craigslist as a way of keeping tabs on PLACES I AM NOT LIVING.

Like a coati in a zoo, every few months I find myself circling back on my track to the "housing" section of Eugene, Corvallis, Tucson, Denver, Santa Fe--but usually just Eugene and Corvallis. I find the house I would be mostly likely to rent, and after dreamily clicking through the apts/sublets, and then (hopelessly) through the "real estate for sale," I desperately click on "housing swap." But no one ever wants to swap for a house where I am.

I look at the listings so long, and so hard, I can SEE myself in that life! It's there WAITING for me, the listing is there--I just need to GET there and GET STARTED on WHO I SHOULD BE.

These bi-monthly bouts of self-loathing are often followed by frantic emails to Vee, announcing that THIS IS WHERE WE SHOULD BE LIVING. Vee knows me better than myself, though, and kindly considers my propositions, knowing that I will confront every "logical" reason we should move and eventually talk myself out of it.

If he just told me "YOU'RE CRAZY. NO." I would unleash a tirade of REASONS WHY IT'S ACTUALLY PLAUSIBLE or WHY IT IS NECESSARY FOR ME TO BECOME WHO I WANT TO BE.

But by telling me, "Sure, we can do that," he puts me back in the driver's seat, and I feel responsible for all the upset that COULD occur if my irrational desire for living-wherever-I'm-not took over my usual happiness-for-where-I-am.

It doesn't stop me from seeing myself here, here, but mostly here, the fir trees all around and the hills like a hug, where the street only knew my name.