The honeymoon is over

I moved to Paradise earlier this month and everything was heavenly – a new home on a lake with a beautiful view, songbirds singing, butterflies fluttering, sunrise peaking up over the trees across the cove. 

I didn’t mind that I had dozens of boxes to unpack, days of yard work to do or a couple of decks to powerwash and paint. It all went with the dream – that work.

Sooner or later, though, it was bound to happen – the bubble burst, the clouds turn from pillowy white to battleship gray, the new love’s sparkle lost.

Oh, don’t get me wrong. I still love my life on the Lake of the Ozarks, but when I got super-lousy customer service at a grocery store Sunday (more on that another time), woke up to a broken boat lift on Monday and learned Tuesday morning that somewhere in the mail stream a Mother’s Day card I sent was stolen, the gift card within it redeemed by the culprit, it hit me like a ton of Missouri boulders – the honeymoon, it’s over.

This little corner of the world I call Paradise has its own little foibles. It isn’t perfect after all.

It may be my little bit of heaven, but it’s the real world, too.

Yet, as long as I keep waking up to the sound of the water lapping against my seawall, the birds singing my wakeup call and the first morning light beckoning me to my morning paddleboat ride, the marriage of this Illinois girl and her Missouri home is still made in heaven.

© Ann Tracy Mueller 2012  

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