Go (Mid)west, young woman
It's funny how dreams become memories. And how the loss of a dream can lead to some of the most wonderful and bittersweet changes in a life. Our "dream" wall in 2020 - we would mark properties for sale with pushpins, color-coded by price and acreage I have lived in Indiana my whole life - but I have wanted to leave for more than half of it. I have dreamed of living in the Pacific NW since my very early 20s. My husband and I have planned, sketched dream properties and houses, "window-shopped" properties numerous times. I even went so far as to purchase maps of Oregon and Washington, plotting out climate pattern predictions to determine where we might want to end up long-term and selecting areas to search for homes. But circumstances, numerous and varied, have kept me here. I have come *thisclose* to actually making the dream of living in the Pacific NW a reality more than once. The first time was in 2007, when my now-husband, ex-husband, and I all took a road tri