A brief moment of clarity

Yesterday I went for a run. I'm sure there are several instances on this blog whereby I'm in a horrid mood, I go for a run, and I magically work through some issues. I was able to work through at least one issue yesterday (though I still woke up and had a gigantic panic attack at 3am this morning).
I am not moving to Lasqueti (at least, not now). Here is why:

• Lasqueti was my father's dream, and though I love him and I love Lasqueti, it's not my dream to live there.


• Moving to Lasqueti would be a move based on emotion, not on logic. I would lose a job that pays very well and treats me very well and I would not come out ahead at Lasqueti. It needs to be fully renovated and that would take many months and over $100,000: I have neither. If I really wanted to write a book I would write it. What's stopping me? My 35 hour work week or my laziness? It's just like the marathon that I just dropped out of: if I really wanted to run Victoria I would find a way to do it. I would get up at 5am. I would stop getting baked and eating ice cream at 11pm. I would actually show up at the clinic. I would run home from work (remember when I used to do that?). I would make. up. the. mileage.


• It's really, really hard to live there. The last two days that we were there we didn't have power because it wasn't sunny and there wasn't enough water to switch over to the peltin wheel. The electrical system is daunting. It's a big house, and it would be scary and isolated at night. I have already had one nightmare about the woodstove which is hooked up to the hot water tank and the pressure gauge above it that redlines at 160 pounds psi (or whatever it is) and though there is a safety valve on it, I don't really want to test it because if it fails to work you will find little bits of me scattered in the bay.


• Again, Lasqueti was my father's dream and it was something that he worked all of his life to achieve. He (and my mom) have given my brother and I a tremendous leg up in life: more than he ever had. It would be too easy to simply to ingratiate myself into my father's dream because of my desire to hold on to him and his memory and everything that he held dear. I know that, if Lasqueti were my dream too, my dad would want me to be there. But it's not, so he would want me to define my own goals and to work hard to achieve them, all the while knowing he's already placed me halfway there.

The thing that I admire most about my dad is that he blazed his own trail and found his own happiness. I would be a fraud to take his money and then try to live his dream: I have to find my own. I need to create my own legend, to blaze my own trail, to find my own contented happiness.
And this begs the question: what is my dream?