Sometimes, in life, the cards that life dealt you is not the cards you want. Sometimes you have to take charge of your own destiny. The question you have to ask yourself is how much do you want it?
I was born in Poland in a place that was very much inland. Except for few trips to the lakeside and one trip with my mother to the seaside, I was never around the water much. I didn't even know how to swim until I was 9. As a matter of fact I taught myself to swim at a summer camp to Czechoslovakia. I begged my parents to let me go, even though I was much younger than most kids going. As part of that camp activities we went to a swimming pool every other day, and in order to keep up to all the other kids I was driven to learn to swim. I tried hard, "drank" a lot of pool water through my nose, went under few times, and persevered in learning to swim that year.
This was very beneficial when my family mover from Poland to Italy just 3 years later and we settled in Borgo Sabotimo (close to Latina) and only minutes away from sea shore. This was the first time that I discovered that I belonged by the sea,
I really enjoyed living by the sea and we often went to the beach and played in the waves. The feel of walking on freshly cleaned sand in the morning (they clean the beach every morning) is still ingrained (no pun intended) in my brain. I loved the smell of salty air, the colour of the water, and the hum of families enjoying the sun.
Once we moved to Canada visits to the sea side became more sporadic. We lived further inland and my parents, as new immigrants, couldn't afford to pay for trips to the beach. But luck would have it that by the time I was 16 I found myself living by an inlet. (I always seemed to end up by the water.) Our new place was walking distance from a waterfront park, and I was lucky enough to walk and bike the paths of that park almost daily. I was very happy there,
Once I moved out on my own I was once again forced to live further inland. Living close to the shore is more expensive and a 19 year old girl working and paying for school couldn't afford it. That year my new boyfriend and I moved to our first place. I was once again close to water, although it was on a river in a major metropolitan center. Once my boyfriend became my fiance and later my husband, we often discussed our dreams of someday owning a home with a water front. But things don't always follow what you plan. We had kids and I quit working to raise our kids, and waterfront properties are just so expensive. So we bought a house inland ..... way, way inland.
A while back we had a crazy thought to sell our place and move to Sunshine Coast. I wanted to wake up to smell of the ocean, the sound of gulls, and the view of little sail boats in the distance. We took a trip there and scoped out possible homes, but the truth is that Daddy's business is here, our kids activities are here, and most importantly, our families are here. Sometimes, to be a grown up means putting away your dreams for another day and doing what must be done for now. I am confident that some day we will get to that waterfront home on the beach and we'll discuss the long road we took to get to that point, but for now we will keep working towards the dream of living in a seaside home. And while we do that, we will take our kids for trips to the beach and share our love of the water with them.
No comments:
Post a Comment