Nancy and I were out on a hike a few years ago while the divorce paperwork was still in process. On a surprisingly clear spring day on the Oregon coast, the ever present sound of waves crashed in the distance as we traipsed through scrub pine forest.

“So what are you going to do when this is all final?”

An inquisitive soulful question. I hesitated, “I don’t really know.”

My work is mobile. For the first time in nearly 20 years, I’m pet-free. Despite my love for Oregon, it feels like nothing is holding me here beyond habit.

“What about Ireland?”

“What about it?”

“You always talk about how you want to go there, be there, live there.”

“I do?”

“Yeah. All the time.”

Have you ever found yourself living a life so small you forget there’s anything bigger? It’s not just that the pandemic rendered life two-dimensional. I kind of forgot how to dream.

“I could go to Ireland,” I whisper, astonished. And then, moved by the audacity of it, burst into tears.

Dear reader, I wrote this message nearly three years ago… or four? It’s funny how time slips by, and I find myself today reading through unpublished posts I’ve written during the elapsed time… from Portugal. Where I now live.

I still get teary from time to time, astonished that my dreams have come true.