Scintilla: What is one massively impossible dream you’ve always had?

I’ve had three massively impossible dreams in my life. 

The first dream was to have a horse and to live on a ranch.  I started dreaming this dream when I was very young, maybe nine years old, playing with my Breyer horses.  I grew up in a small suburban town in Southern California and ranches just don’t exist in LA County.  I rented horses, borrowed horses and pretty much rode as much as I could without actually owning a horse.  When I was 40, I finally bought a horse of my own and shortly thereafter my husband and I built a small ranch in the coastal mountains.  It’s a lot of hard work but I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

The second dream was to marry Brett.  If you’ve read the previous days prompts, you have a sense of the difficulties that dream entailed.  I met Brett when I was 17, fell in love with him when I was 19, and we parted ways when I was 22 – and 25 and 29.  He was very married, with small children.  He was a devoted father and at 29 I wanted my own family and children.  I cut ties with him completely.  I was tired of feeling like a mistress; it’s a horrible feeling.  But, my subsequent marriage failed and he ultimately got divorced and almost 25 years after meeting, we did marry. 

The last dream is to live in France.  I went to Europe with two girlfriends when I was in college.  The one friend was going to Switzerland to visit her father, whom she hadn’t seen since she was three.  She was nervous so I went along for moral support.  Her father was very nice and his wife was French.  They spoke French in the home.  I fell in love with the language and the food, came back to the US and started taking French classes.  I have a very good friend who lives in Normandy but also has a home in Brittany.  We visit each other almost every year, sometimes here in the US and sometimes there in France.   The more I visit her, the more I want to live there.  I love the pace of life in the small towns (I’m not a huge fan of Paris other than to visit for the day), the food (OMG, moules et frites with a bottle of muscadet) and, well, everything French.  Of course, I also have the complications of dream #1 and dream #2 – I can’t leave my horse and the other animals for more than a week or two, and I certainly can’t leave the love of my life.  Yes, he would go with me but he doesn’t speak French and who would take care of the animals?  I wouldn’t trust them with anyone else.  So, this dream is massively impossible – not even taking into consideration the fact that my job is here and my children.  But I can still dream, right?