How I got to happiness tonight

Let's say I was 13, still living at home in Ohio with my parents, and imagining a life I might like. Suppose somebody told me that when I grew up, one night I'd be sitting in a spacious home with soft hardwood floors -- my home -- in a LazYBoy with two cats snuggled up together on my lap. Suppose somebody told me I'd be a writing teacher and that I'd just gotten back from having an hour-long massage that I can afford even in troubled times because I just sold a poem to of all places, the Educational Testing Service. Suppose somebody told me I'd have a husband who loved me and that I would fly across the country to my other home in LA several times a year. Suppose somebody had told me that I'd write a monthly column that people peruse while having breakfast at the Farmer's Market and sometimes I stealthily watch them read it and see them smile. Suppose I'd known that I'd turn out to be a grown-up woman who loves silver maples and drives a red car.

I would have said, "Wow, that sounds like paradise."