Twenty Twenty

Wednesday, March 17, 1999

As the saying goes, hindsight is twenty/twenty... we can look back and see perfectly what we should have done. What we wish we'd done. But looking back can only cause regrets. Today, I'm looking forward... to 2020.

In 2020, I see Jev and myself settled down in a nice little house somewhere on the outskirts of a medium-sized city. He has a job he enjoys, and we have enough to get by, and a little left over to have a nice vacation now and then, and put some money away for retirement.

I'll still be flitting from hobby to hobby, project to project, story to story. I'll never really settle down and concentrate on one thing... my mind just doesn't take to that. I don't think it's so much because I get bored, but because there are just so many things I'd like to do.

Our cats will be our only 'kids', though there will be friends' kids, whom we 'borrow' from time to time... maybe play aunt and uncle, or watch them for a weekend, while their parents have some time away by themselves. I can see Jev showing some eager computer nut in training how to install a hard drive, or write a program that plays a simple numbers game or somesuch. Not to say that we won't have some time together for just him and I... no computers, no cats, no responsibilities.

Maybe some day we'll take a nice, long cruise (see, we babysit these kids until they grow up, and then we hire them to watch the cats for us while we go on vacation). I'd like to see the northern lights. Maybe see Big Ben and the sights of London. Ireland and Scotland call my name too... all the green, rolling countryside, and the heather and the moors. The redwoods of Northen California draw me, too, and the breathtaking postcards of the Grand Canyon.

A week by the ocean, the sound of the surf breaking on the rocks lulling us to sleep at night... midnight walks under a full moon, with not another soul in sight... lazy horseback rides through autumn woods... planting a garden of strawberries and sunflowers. And lettuce and green beans and carrots and peppers. Nothing tastes better than fruits and vegetables right out of your very own garden.

I think 2020 will be a very good year.... don't you?