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  • From: <eureka AT hctc.net>
  • To: bobford79 AT yahoo.com, homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] Give up the dream?
  • Date: Sun, 23 Nov 2008 14:22:51 -0600

Hi Roxanne, I'm in late on this thread. From what I've read, there's some very good advice coming from the list that I would agree with.

In my own situation, I was single without kids, and I knew I wanted to homestead for about five years before leaving the city, only I always figured I would meet a man there and we'd go off and do this together. I felt very alone in the city.

I had been dating a city boy who was legally bound to live within 25 miles of his ex until their son was of age. He had no life dream. Our relationship wasn't going anywhere, and I figured I wasn't getting any younger, so I announced I was going to move to the country to do my dream. He seemed supportive, until I actually landed a job and found a place. He called, desperately pleading for me to stay, saying he would *even marry me*! I hung up and we had no contact for several years.

Those couple of years, I did just fine on my own. Then he turns up living in a rural town 15 minutes away, having taken a small town job after a high tech layoff and somehow worked out the distance with the ex. I thought maybe something had changed in him. He drags the belligerent son over on weekends to work in my garden. We get--briefly--engaged. Because cell phones don't work here, the ex gets my number to check on her son, and instead starts calling at wierd hours and leaving scathing messages. I gave them all the boot.

It was about five years into homesteading that I really wished I had a partner. I joined Green Singles, and developed friendships with several homesteading and homesteading wannabe guys and fell in love with the one I am now married to. Life has never been better. I have one relative, and two friends who met their husbands online and couldn't be better suited to one another.

Maybe the most loving thing to do is to just let go, and let each of you live your respective dreams (although it's been pointed out your husband doesn't seem to have a dream of his own, he just doesn't share yours) and see how that goes. Seven years sounds like a long time to be unemployed, to not have thrown oneself 100% into the hometead project, so maybe he is dealing with some issues that have nothing to do with you and the homestead? Issues that would still be there in Louisiana?

I doubt if you'd be happy just spending one night in the finished house...you'd always be wondering about all those other nights that could've been spent there, since homesteading isn't a completed snapshot, but a process. (I agree, the completed house wouldn't have changed what's going on).

Which would be better, living a compromise--or less than a compromise--never experiencing your dream, or perhaps going it alone for a while and then meeting someone like I did that shares your dream completely? You are a lovely, multi-talented woman, so you won't have to go it alone unless you choose to.

--Sage





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