The old homestead? I don't think so.

Gotta phone call two weeks ago which I can only call magical. A woman called to say she wanted to buy my house, (my house?), we only moved in six months ago. She said our house was her dream house and that she had put in an offer and lost out because her house did not sell at the time. Well, now her house has sold and she wants mine.

No way would we move unless financially she made it worthwhile, she did not, because she cannot.
BUT
The house I would move to, does make it very worthwhile.
It’s the old family homestead built by my in-laws almost 70 years ago. My mother-in-law brought her babies home to that house and I brought my babies home to that house after we bought it in ’83.

We sold that house in ’03 because a buyer knocked on our front door and made us an unbelievable deal we could not pass up. (That’s when the magic started.) It’s a long story, I won’t burden my carpal tunnel with it just now, but to move back would be OUR dream come true.

Now, the house is owned by a municipality, and a squatter (their word not mine) has been living there for years without paying rent. We came very, very close to making a deal to buy it but behind the scenes the squatter got a mortgage and closes in a short while. We lost out to a low-life, dead-beat.

How could tax paying, hardworking, upright citizens lose out to someone like that?

That’s the question which drenched every tear I have shed over this. And there have been many. I am heartbroken.

And then I realized something very important.

And what does this have to do with writing?

It is ridiculous that I have let the lowlife manage thoughts regarding my future. It is ludicrous that I allow agents, editors and publishers to flatten my aims when it comes to what I plan my writing future to be. I am in control of nothing from the lowlife guy to the hardworking folks in traditional publishing and yet I let them rule my feelings and thoughts as related to what happens tomorrow. What tomorrow?

It is foolish.

It will stop.

Do I want to move back to a house filled with family memories?

Do I want to live in a home perfectly suited for an aging couple?

Yes and yes.

Do I want to be traditionally published?

Do I want to be able to write full time?

Yes and yes again.

BUT

All I have is now, with thoughts of a tomorrow which promises me nothing.

Right now, my current house, which is pretty nice and someone else’s dream house, is mine. Sorry caller.

I’ve been published hundreds of times and that’s pretty good.

I’m going with what I’ve got this very minute, and that’s a hell of a cold, a warm house and a paid writing gig for a newspaper.

Life is good and I am grateful.

 

Who rules thoughts of YOUR future?