Love doesn't break hearts.

The local newspaper here published a 9/11 memoir I wrote in both the newspaper and online. I feel really, really happy. It's the first thing I've ever had published in a professional newspaper. If anyone is interested, here's the link.
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I want to live a simple life. 

I want to live near the ocean and work at a small, local paper. I have no desire to be a huge, well-known reporter, no desire to win the Pulitzer Prize, no desire to work for the New York Times and write on court cases and government every day. 

I want to live in a small community where life is slow and everyone knows everyone else. I want to write feature stories on the locals and have them like me as a human being. 

Eventually, I want to have children and actually have time for them. I want to drive them to school in the morning or make them sack lunches and urge them out the door so they won't be late for class.

I want to be out on the beach when the thunder starts rolling in, when the clouds go dark and the world turns into this crazy beautiful place.

I want to be friends with musicians and hipsters and hippies and go to the local farmer's market ever week in the summer and then sing around a campfire at night.

I want to wander into the local bookstore every day and just take it all in, breathe in every scent and every emotion. And then I'd wander down to the coffee shop and sip my mocha in the ocean air.

I want to be able to go down to the ocean every day and dip my feet in the sand and the water even when it's freezing cold. I want to be able to smoke as much as I want and not have to think about what my mother might think of me.

That would be the life for me.