Priceless

Well, we're here. Chaga and me that is. We're here, with the love of my life, in our new home built sometime in the late 1480s (makes you realize how relative "new" is), filtering our thoughts between all of the valuable (and not so valuable) artifacts on the walls, tables, corners, ceilings. We are leasing the house but somehow when I walk through it I get the sensation of house sitting for two exotic artists or collectors of museum-quality artifacts whom I have never met but of whom I somehow have already formed opinions. It is as if they invited me to stay for a while and promptly popped out for a bit, never to be heard of again. But, they made certain to leave instructions on how to live in their house. It's difficult to explain all of the new experiences, mix of emotions and strange thoughts I've gone through in less than a week. Leaving my family and friends was more difficult than I even thought it would be. Walking through the security gates at Cleveland International Airport with my ridiculously heavy carry on bags loaded down with computer equipment, books and important papers, clothes, jewelry... all those things you don't want to put in a checked bag for fear that it will be lost forever and end up being sold for a fraction of the price at that big warehouse of unclaimed luggage somewhere in Kentucky. All of this on top of the three 50+ Lb. checked bags and Chaga. But shit man, it's not as if I was just on holiday. I packed my life into a 5'x5' storage unit and these suitcases. And I paid dearly for it all too. Chaga's ticket was over $1400 (compared to mine at the low one-way bargain price of a mere $900). My extra suitcase cost an extra $200. Great, now I sound like that MasterCard commercial: *Two tickets to London: $2300 *Extra suitcase: $200 *Bottle of Water: $2 *Seeing your husband and dog on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean: Priceless Yes, it is true. It is priceless being able to wake up next to Justin every morning, making coffee, tea and meals with him or drinking a bottle of wine and laughing until we're exhausted. It is priceless knowing that I have Chaga next to me on the floor every night and seeing her happy little face peering through the window excited at the sight of the orange cat slinking around our tiny back yard or watching her practically skip along the footpath, through the cow pastures, over the streams, tuckering herself out. And priceless knowing of my greatest fortune: Time with them both.