The Life I Want to Live (or not?)

[hrj]

 Most of my life I've had an endless conflict between living the life I imagine that I want, the life that I really enjoy, the life that I can manage to achieve, and the life that  I can sustain. Some of the conflict gets resolved by writing fiction. But there's always a pulling in multiple directions. I love the thought of huge old mansions...but don't have the household to inhabit them or the budget for staff. I love the image of entertaining a large circle of friends...but totally stress out over actually making plans for hosting social events. I enjoy the thought of having the ingredients/supplies/equipment for making/doing anything my imagination dreams up at the drop of a hat...but end up having stuff lying around gathering dust a lot of the time. I love doing research and presenting it to the world purely for love...but sometimes I'd like to know that other people love what I'm doing too.

But today this thought is brought to you by this one: I love having my garden and mini-orchard and rose bushes and all that...but sometimes when I've looked around at all the maintenance that needs to be done to keep it in some semblance of presentability, I fantasize about a one-bedroom condo with no yard. Ok, two bedroom, because I need the library.