I've known since before this blog started that sooner or later I would have to write this post. It doesn't make it any easier to write. Not one bit.

I met Eva in January of 1999. We moved in together in July, considered ourselves married at that point, and formalized it fifteen months later. We were instant best friends and lifemates.

I can't recall for sure, but I think it was the premarital counselling that either expanded upon a conversation we'd had already, or forced that conversation into being. 

We are immensely and intensely compatible in most areas of life. Our visions of ourselves and each other are complementary; we share similar notions of politics and spirituality; our marriage fundamentally works. We don't fight much: even with some long-lacked assertiveness I've gained in the last several years, there just isn't much to fight about. 

There is, however, one vision of the future we do not share.

Eva has, for many many years, harboured a dream of living on her mom's "farm". I put "farm" in quotes because right now it's not a working or even a hobby Farm, and will not fit in either category when she inherits it. But it does have a barn and forty some odd acres. The capacity is there; the intent is not. 

This is not a dream I have. Some days, that is a MASSIVE understatement.

We talked about it, like I said, all the way back in the summer of 2000, before we married. It was positioned as something I wouldn't have to think about for at least Twenty Years, and so I chose not to. I told her back then that a fundamental incompatibility unlikely to manifest for decades was no reason to pre-emptively throw away those decades, and besides? A lot can happen in decades.

Decades have gone by. A lot has indeed happened, but none of it has altered her dream. If anything it's been reinforced. And its reality is no longer decades away. It's more like years...possibly months away. 

The few friends I have felt close enough to talk about this to have been very harsh on me. I have been called selfish, uncaring and a Shitty Husband. The first two are occasionally true, though I'd argue not here; the third is only a criticism I will ever accept from Eva, and it would trigger a change in our relationship. If Eva has ever thought of me as a shitty husband, she has kept that thought very, very well hidden.

The first obstacle is that I do not and will not ever drive -- not unless autonomous vehicles become commonplace, and I do NOT see that happening in my lifetime no matter how many breathless technology articles I read. The farm is a ten minute drive from the nearest small town and an hour's drive from any place with, you know, jobs.

Counter: I currently work from home. I haven't talked to my employer about relocation yet, but I don't anticipate massive hurdles. We have people working from home in several other Ontario cities, and I've been assured the internet connection in the back of the boondocks is no worse than what we have now.  So that's okay so long as I keep this job until I retire at the age of dead. Should the job go away for any reason, it's hard to even imagine what I might do to keep us solvent.

Outside of earning a living, there's...living. And there are no doubt some positives to living up there. The carrying cost is dramatically reduced, which is another counter to the concern about employment. It's quiet (once you get past the combined noise of six very yappy weiner dogs) and it's dark at night and those are two things I value higher than many.  

But for a guy who does not and will never drive...it's isolated. Very isolated. There is of course zero public transit. If I want to do anything that involves leaving the house, I'm required to impose on somebody. That they don't consider it an imposition doesn't really slay that dragon. They might not now, but what about a year from now? Five? Ten?

(Just voiced this concern to Mark, who was very quick to assure me I am never a burden, and I respectfully thanked him for promising to take me to town or city whenever I felt like it...and then asked him if he'd be interested in doing the same things I would do each day I escaped. Of course not.)

How is this any different from how you live your life NOW, you ungrateful wretch? You spend 78 hours a day on the fucking computer. You can do than ANYWHERE.

All very true, but at least here I have the opportunity. A bus stops five houses away from me in either direction. There are bookshops to scour, malls to walk, movies to see...all things I don't do all the time but nevertheless very much like to do.

Positives. More positives. Corvids. There are lots of corvids up there to befriend (and twenty years ago I never would have imagined that as any kind of positive, but I've learned about corvids in the interim and I wanna make friends with one or more. 

Lots of space to spread out and get away from noise. I may even end up having my own little tiny home "man cave" somewhere on the property. That is both super cool and something I could never have here.

Mowing the lawn will be fun since I'll get to use a riding lawnmower for only the second time in my life (and first since I was about eleven). There's also a golf cart and Eva says I'll get an ATV or an electric bike to get me to town.

There are friends of Eva's and her mom's up there, too, so I will see at least a few other people regularly. I know two of them already and although I haven't seen them in years, I know we'll hit it off well. 

Kathy has said she wants me in her world, and of course I hope that can be. But I won't hold her to that. It's hard enough being an hour away. Four? With Toronto and its hellish traffic between us? I haven't seen her as often as I'd like to as it is, and I don't anticipate visits being any more common. I've said since the beginning that she deserves somebody closer. 

I"m unlikely to see much of anyone else currently in my life, either. 

Not that I see many people often as it is. I just plain SUCK at making friends. I mean, it's hard for any adult: the reason you had so many friends as a kid (if you did) was because you were trapped for about thirty hours a week with these people. Outside work, that's not common as an adult. But I'm especially bad. "We should get together", somebody says (oooh, melting, somebody wants to see me? ME?) and I ask what's a good day and weeks go by without a response. Am I supposed to ask again? No, that's clingy. They probably didn't mean what they said.

I will be back here. I have the best eye doctor in the city, as voted by a whole lot of people over many years running. Our family doctor is younger than we are and also very good. But those visits will be few and far between unless somebody's health goes to shit and of course we hope that doesn't happen. 

It's a very big change, and an environment utterly alien to me. It's very hard for me to think positively about it. But I owe everyone an honest try at that. And an honest effort once I get up there to make it work. Eva's going to do all she can, too.

It's not my world, so I have to make it as close to my world as I can get it. But that's no different from how I have felt about everywhere, my whole life long.