10:02 p.m. - April 24, 2010
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It's not condo-hunting exactly, but there's more to it than wishful thinking. Go with the ultramodernultrachic 30-floor building two blocks from the Inner Harbor with water views, or the restored warehouse with 20-foot ceilings, tons of windows, and few interior walls? Which would I want to call home, what are the prosandcons, is it time to hire a real estate agent? I gravitate towards these two places and I fantasize myself in both, a glass of wine next to a chair on the balcony overlooking the harbor, twinkling lights and salty breeze in one, bare minimalist open space with walls of windowpanes, exposed brick, nestled amid a protected watershed, in the other.
It is not fantasy to call up an agent and say, I'm buying this. I have the money, the interest. But what I don't have is the vision, the desire to make it happen, the belief that I can. It would be worse for me to live in the home of my dreams and for it to be as devoid as my home in California was, or the apartment I live in now is, of friends and visitors. If I had the waterfront condo, I'd feel worse about myself than I already do because places like that should have friends over with the tinkling of wine glasses and crisp conversation floating over the balcony. The warehouse deserves a painting party and loud music and people linking arms to head out to the bars and clubs down the street, filling the large space with lots of sound. They both deserve life and to be lived in, and I'm not there yet. Instead, I hole up in my small apartment with the 9 windows I love but have outgrown, wondering where I go next. Even here, I live like a visitor - sparse furniture, not a thing on the walls, little to suggest who I am.
Besides, there isn't one person I could ask here to help me move. That's enough to make me stay put.
