Cottage Life, my life, not the magazine

Imagine having one of these do a fly-by! The juvenile
flew close enough to us that we could hear the
"fooop, foop" of his wings

The cottage was pretty good overall. I swam, I kayaked, I ate, I drank, I gave someone a windsurfing lesson (great job L!!), I buzzed around the bay on a sea-doo (wicked fun!).

M and I hung out a lot. Including kayaking to Dead Head Bay where she showed me the resident baled eagles (and they did not disappoint in showing themselves off). I also had a few good conversations with M and my parents that helped me.

Just about everyone I know up there I’ve known since birth, or known since their birth. M’s parents bought their property 2 over from ours at the same time, (about 42 years ago) and back in the day everybody was building their own cottages themselves. For bigger projects neighbors came over to help and M and I would end up in the same playpen together while roof trusses were set up etc. M went on to marry the boy next door to our cottage, and now has 2 girls of her own. I’m not kidding when I say I’ve know her all my life, ditto with her parents, brother and family that populates our end of the bay. It’s my cottage family, and I love my cottage family. Particularly now, things have changed horribly in my life but they still treat me the same.

This however opened up some pretty big emotional questions for me.

Because of our location (usually on the wrong side of the big city and it’s hideous traffic), the horses and our horse hobbies, my job that entailed working weekends, and HIM not being really big on swimming/water sports we haven’t made it up there a whole lot.

But I really love it up there and was always aware I missed going up there more.

The question of what was going to happen with the cottage came up last year, my parents getting older and cottages, by their nature, needing constant maintenance. Because of our life it was decided the cottage would be sold. But now that it’s just my life I’m wondering if I want that to happen, or can bare to have that happen. It would have been bearable with HIM around…

If I tried to hang on to it, it would mean a radical change in my life, at the very least a move to the right side of the big city, closer to really good friends, further away from the ones I have here. I’m not even sure if I can afford to keep the cottage, never mind the constant maintenance. If I was to straight out inherit the cottage I would have to pay a “luxury tax” of half it’s worth, that’s over $100 000.00. (And here’s the Rant De Jour: My parents worked their asses off to afford the cottage, never mind building it, and the government somehow deems it necessary to tax their hard work?!?!?!?)

And just to be clear I don’t have that kind of money.

There are some other ways I can be given the cottage, but it’s still costly, and then there’s the question of being able to maintain it, property taxes, utilities etc. So add to the list of “Sucky Crap I have To Deal With” is talking to my parents about possibly hanging on to the cottage. I’m not sure if it’s realistic and I guess that’s the first thing to be decided....who knew the Symphony of Suck also toured?!

But overall the cottage was good, great infact, all of the above was kind of like an after shock realization while driving home.

It helped that I did a little shopping on my way back, a few things for my “new bedroom” at IKEA, a few small things for friends, and a stop at my fav European deli.

Unfortunately, I didn’t sleep any better at the cottage than I do here at home, which blows my switching bedrooms theory right up, but at least now I’ll be sleep deprived with a nice bedside lamp.