Sleepless in Santee

It's been several months since I stopped taking Trazodone, both as an added antidepressant and as a sleep aid.  The first few weeks off it were very weird sleep-wise, but then I got back on the mostly sleeping train.  And it's mostly been fine, until looking for land.

If only I had this view when sleepless

Every time we go looking at land, I lay in bed after we listen to our audiobook (right now it's book two of The King Killer Chronicles) thinking of all the things we could do with the land and all the things we may have overlooked about the land and do I really like that land and also replaying such classics as "how are we going to pay for this?" "will any financial institution lend us money when I basically have no income?" and "The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round."  (Yes, literally.)

It's currently 2am PST.  I've been doing this at least two hours but possibly three.  My fail-safe method of systematic relaxation has failed for the first time.  

Chris seems eager to buy, and soon.  I can understand that.  We're bleeding money living in a 2 bedroom apartment in Santee and the animals have no great life here.  He wants the dog to get some more quality time in a yard chasing a kicked ball while he can still enjoy it.  And we want to be settled.

My brother-in-law (a realtor) has advised that we not buy before the election as land prices could take a dive soon thereafter.  And in reality, I don't think we could start the process of buying any land now and actually sign before November 3rd.  I mean, there has to be perc tests and... maybe water tests and... some other stuff I don't really understand.  But then, who's going to lower the price on some land if there is an interested buyer?

Chris pointed out today that the land we just looked at has 2 water tanks we can use instead of the many cisterns we'd planned to buy.  I'm not positive how expensive cisterns are, but that too is a significant benefit to that land.  And yet... does it feel... right?

I'm fearful that I'm not going to know what feels right to me when I feel it.  I didn't when I found Albuquerque.  Well, I did but it was way too scary for me to understand at the time.  It was so different from everything I knew!  And this is the same.  I realized tonight that I'm holding land here to a standard of lushness and fullness that I learned growing up in New England.  Deep, bawdy streams, green that doesn't even have to try, a softness that comes from water suffusing everything.  It's a standard that is about as likely here as the standards for human beauty are in general to the human population, and also about as accurate.  And I don't want to live in New England!  The land is too wet, and too buggy, and ... too many memories.

The land here is beautiful; I just haven't learned to fully see it yet.  It's a great mix of what I learned to love about the desert in New Mexico, tempered with a bit more wetness that allows some growth that I'm used to from the northeast.  But staying here, I will not ever have the flamboyant, rushing waters of streams that I come across by accident in the woods.  In fact, I will hardly have the woods.  At least, not in a place we can buy land that's within an hour to the city.  I will have scrubby bushes, fun rocks, and maybe low trees if I want them.  I can probably have cacti too, and though I think a palm tree would be too much to care for, I could have that.  And I love those things.

But will I learn to let that beauty move my being in a short enough time to make the right moves?  Will finding land that feels right scare me so that I don't let myself know it?  Will a dream of the perfect place not allow me to find the right place?