We're Not Out of the Woods Yet...

Once upon  time, as I sat in the small cottage where I lived with my mother back in the

town by the lake, I made a wish.  A wish to have my very own treehouse home in the

forest, living on the outskirts of a city surrounded by a circle of female friends and

fun...

 

 

It's been five years since I left everything behind to move across the country.  A lot

has changed: relationships, routines, jobs, homes. I moved here for the wrong reasons. 

I was running away from myself, from my failures, from a relationship I ruined.  My first

love, the prince next door and I had been together for eight years.  I could have

stayed but I strayed.  Grass is always greener.  Running from my addictions to magic

"potions" and mushrooms.  I couldn't see the forest for the trees.  Running from myself most of all.  For five years after making that wish, I was a washed up has-been.  I had once

been a successful forest blogger, making & selling crafts, and writing

fairytales for my friends to read. Camping and hiking every weekend. I was a freelance

fortune teller and had a job at the local library and pretty much lived a charmed life. 

I met amazing women online, we all supported and uplifted each other.  Life was

wonderful.  If I could have written happily ever after and closed the book, I would

have...

 

 

Then my castle in the sky came crashing down.  I had just quit my job to pursue running my own business and my mom moved to Arizona.  I moved in with my boyfriend and his dad.  Things got rough.  Alcoholism, poverty, sloth...the next few years I tried to hold onto

my forest fairy roots, surrounded by negativity and no job prospects in my small town. 

So when I met a guy online who offered my everything I ever wanted I packed it all up:

my basic brown dress, pen and notebook, my best emerald jewelry, and a sense of

optimism.  I was going to leave it all behind and become a different person where no one

knew me. 

 

 

"I was lost in the forest, and when I came out on the other side found myself in a city..."

 

As soon as I blew into Baltimore, I felt I had found my home.  It was all I had

ever wanted.  I lived in walking distance near cute cafes, fairy festivals, parks,

forests, free book stores, clothing swaps, friendly folks.  It was a place I could live

car-free, and had farmers markets and libraries.  I got two new jobs: working as a bookseller and library page. And although things didn't work out with the guy, the apartment we lived in inspired me: What if I left him and got my own cute little apartment, and could play my records and have a little writing nook by the window where I could watch the world go by?  We broke up two years after  I moved to the Northwoods neighborhood of the city with a new boyfriend who played a green violin, but his heart still wouldn't let me in...Things didn't work out then either...

 

Now, I'm sitting on the third floor of my cute little apartment in the village, looking

out on a rainy night as I write this, thinking of how it all turned out after I made that wish,  And though it's not a treehouse, it's still high enough that I feel like a bird on a branch when I sit on my fire escape filled with plants and drink tea every morning.  It may not be a rugged woodland, but the "forest on the outskirts of the city" that is Wyman Woods is five minutes from me.  Foxes, squirrel and deer dart by.  And the beautiful women I call my friends continue to make

magic every day.