Victorian Houses, Paddy Town: My Old Dream, My New Home.

Has it been two days already?

I'm sitting here enjoying the new autumn along with it's subtle breeze, the falling and turning of leaves, the sounds of school bells off in the distance.

I live quite close to an over-two-hundred year old school which I used to attend in the early 2000's. It was the first place I brought my husband, funny enough. I don't know what it is about that particular place, but it gives me chills and a sense of such wonder that I am just drawn to it again and again.

Since I moved away I had been back to that same old neighbourhood with its looming churches and their gardens, the graveyards with elaborate tombstones (so worn that you cannot read the name of the soul which lays beneath), and the old town houses, nearly every weekend in fall. It's my favourite adventure, discovering new old things. I just walk quietly amongst swirling leaves at my feet, my scarf tightly wrapped around my neck, and ponder. Both my husband and Emma can tell you how much I enjoy my time.

(Note: Paddy town is the most beautiful place in the world. Almost as beautiful as the view of the tower and an old church amongst the pines atop of the hill on Main Street...)
Something captivates my heart; perhaps it's the sound of church bells that echo the same way on cloudy afternoons as they did ten years ago, as they did nearly two hundred years before that

I wanted nothing more than to live in the neighbourhood so I could absorb the feeling of wonder and serenity I got from it all, every day. Greedily. I never thought it possible, it was just something I dreamt about, beyond what I could attain.

I waited eight or nine long years and suddenly my dream came true. Nothing makes me feel more accomplished than walking to work every morning past pioneer burial grounds, vines that clutch and slowly climb everything, wrought iron gates covered in foliage, Victorian houses which have aged so romantically- eerily, even.

Then I enter the neighbourhoods with their manicured lawns and old houses, elderly people with fancy cars, and dogs so well trained they walk without leashes- it feels all too good for me. Everyone says hello here, everyone picks up garbage, everyone smiles. I like to think they feel as blessed as I do living amongst the old beauty that is our history.

Sometimes you get what you want, it just falls in your lap and the gratefulness you feel for such good fortune it beyond you. It surely has been that way for me.

I sit here with my husband, enjoying my favourite season, in my favourite place. Its hard to count your blessings when there are so many of them.

Fond moments and memories of my adventures here linger, they give me a warm feeling, and then an uneasy feeling of nostalgia- when I lived at home with my loving parents, when I was young, when everything was new. That being said, what I dreamt about then, I have it all now.

Whatever I did to deserve such a life, I honestly don't know.