NOT too good to be true

For a very long time, since just about the time Ed and I first visited Seattle, so's I could find us a place to move to, both of us have felt like living in Seattle was just too good to be true.

I'm in no way trying to say that living here is idealized perfection -- not even close. But comparing to anywhere in Oklahoma, or anywhere in Bastrop County, Texas, well, we ARE talking miles better than that. At least to MY way of thinking, which is pretty much all we ever talk about here in this space.

The bad thing about that "too good to be true" sort of feeling is, among other things, that one is continually waiting for the other shoe to drop. I mean, we've all had it beaten into our heads since we were kids, if something SEEMS too good to be true, it probably is.

But if the thing that seems too good to be true is the place where one lives, where millions of other people live, how does one, then, live? In our case, it was a constant subliminal fear that somehow, for some reason, Ed and I would not be allowed to stay here in the Pacific Northwest, In the Puget Sound region, in Seattle, in Capitol Hill.

Just this past week, I finally realized that there is no reason for us to feel this way. Yes, moving to Seattle may have come as a "gift" from his former employer, but that "gift" was revoked when Ed quit without a new job. By finding his new/current job, Ed proved that -- like the old Smith Barney commercials -- he had earned his place here. And by somehow managing, by hook and by crook, to keep us in our apartment and fed while the job search proceeded, I earned my place here as well.

So now, the promise Ed made to me as we drove north out of Texas is truly true: I will never have to live in Oklahoma, ever again, unless -- for some unknown reason -- I actually want to be there. But for the foreseeable future, I'm pretty sure I'd rather be here.....