aliens and strangers

Keeping a blog looks like fun, and I've decided I don't need any other reason to do it. So here we are!
I've been rather contemplative lately about ... well, life. Where I live. How important (or not) that is. You see, I'm from the West Coast. I am a West Coast gal. I don't belong here in the D.C. area, or anywhere other than the Pacific NW -- yet I haven't lived there since 1997. I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about what brought me here. And, whether I should be here. And, whether it really matters WHERE we are. The older I get, the more I realize that life is all about people. Souls are eternal; beautiful fir trees and coastlines and air humid only with sea salt -- not the pit-stinky humidity of the D.C. swamp -- are not what matter. Ah, but then again, my family -- also eternal souls, and very precious to me -- are on the West Coast! But they're all spread around. So do I have the "right" to draw lines with my fiance-to-be (trust me on this one)? His family is here. All of them. And they always have been. So, he IS home.
Maybe not the guy for me? Well, we have a 2-year-old who needs us not to be on different coasts. And her welfare is worth any sacrifice. NOT that marriage to said fellow would be a sacrifice along those drastic lines -- no more than any marriage is, that is. Of course we sacrifice things. Decisions are about narrowing our options, which sounds to me like sacrifice. But sometimes, especially for me, the Queen of Indecisiveness, a little uncontrolled narrowing of options is helpful.
My point in all this is, should we let go of some of the dreams we have that don't seem to square with reality, and likelihood, and simply serve to make us unhappy in our seemingly inescapable circumstances? Or should we continue to kick against the goads? Is it in God's plan for me to live once again where I "want" to? Or, horrors, might I come to see the likes of Manassas as "home"? (not too likely) Or ... might my letting go of the dream make it less likely to happen? Or maybe more likely? Maybe that's the very element that I'm to learn in all this -- to let go and let God, as they say. Or maybe, I'm supposed to realize that, as I suggested before, the important things in life aren't geographic location. Or maybe even proximity to one's family. Maybe they're about loving someone else so much that we allow them to live THEIR dreams. I don't know. I have a lot to learn.
So, for now, I commute for two hours a day (one each way), and love my 2-year-old so much it makes me cry on a daily basis, and enjoy the fact that I have a great job that I really, really don't deserve, and a great boss and a fairly nice bunch of co-workers. And really great health, I should add. And some of the most incredible friends I never imagined I'd be lucky enough to have. (though they keep moving away... those ropes I try to tie them down with just don't seem to hold for long enough.) I am blessed.