The local paper here recently had a series about this area called something like, "Our Patch is Paradise." I think it is, and plan to stay right here for the rest of my life, but there seem to be plenty of people who have lived here all their lives and think the grass has to be greener someplace else. This is a summer tourist area where many Aussies come when it seems too hot in other areas, but the winters are much milder too than in the places I've lived in outside Australia, with green grass, flowers and no snow. There have been time when I have forgotten that and wished it was summer, clearly the nicest time of the year here. Paradise seems to be more of an attitude that a location, but that is not to say I would care to live in Iraq now. I had never set foot on this island until the day I arrived here and bought this house that afternoon. I was just seeking a place where I could settle and most likely be content enough to not regret being somewhere else, as it is pretty hard to live in more than one place at the same time. When I first moved here to retire six years ago, I had a some trouble getting a Tasmanian Driver's License, as I had to overcome some bad habits developed over 40 years of driving to pass my first in the car driving test since I qualified for an IllinoisLicense at the age of 16, with passing that only being the result of drawing a softie for an examiner. Before I did manage to pass that, I was thinking that perhaps I should have settled in a city east of here where I could have bought a place to live within walking distance of daily AA and NA meetings, instead of having only one a week within an hour's drive. As things have worked out, I did pass and have had no regrets since about settling here. I'm reminded of an Aboriginal woman who said she woke up in a rehab and thought God must have made a mistake. She said she came to understand since that God doesn't make mistakes and she is pretty much where she is meant to be with the people she is meant to be with. Or, in the words of an old pop song, "If you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with." |