Hope

Last night, I came to a horrible decision.

As much as I hate living here, building a new house just isn't in the cards for me.

I need to concentrate on upgrading my equipment for work, and on finally learning to do realtime, so that I can be assured of having a job far into the future.  A new steno machine will probably run me somewhere between $3000 and $6000.  Then I have to upgrade my software so I can use it on my laptop.  Then I need to buy all the gewgaws that will let me hook up with attorneys' laptops so I can do the realtime.

It isn't going to be cheap.  It wouldn't be do-able at all if I had a much bigger house payment to make as well.

Oh, but then the good part.

A large part of the reason I decided to build here instead of moving somewhere else with pizza delivery and high-speed internet is because my family needs me right not.  My mother is taking care of my grandmother at home.  Grandma can't be left by herself for more than a few hours because she can't cook anymore, and because if she's left alone for too long, she starts getting strange ideas.  She had a brain hemorrhage a few years ago, and needs someone to talk to to stay focused on real life.  My mother's sister lives in Boston, and her brother can't or won't do anything to help.  My father works.  So there's only me to help mom out, and if I wasn't there, poor Mom would never get to leave the house.

But by the time I've upgraded my equipment and my brain and my fingers, maybe things will have changed.  Maybe I'll be able to move somewhere interesting and exciting.  Maybe even somewhere like London?  The BBC hires lots of American court reporters to do their captioning.  And there are lots of expat court reporting firms that do American depo work abroad.

I was saying I needed a grand passion?

E-X-P-A-T-R-I-A-T-E

Doesn't that have a lovely ring to it?

Now all I have to do is feel the same way tomorrow.

And the next day.

And the next day.

And the next day...