One Step Closer To Heaven

I just got to the cottage. Well, not just, but it feels like close enough to just. We have a sign over the door of our screened in porch that says "Life at the cottage is like heaven on earth." At this moment, I couldn't agree more.

My cottage is at the heart of cottage country on a small lake. Somedays a very small lake. When I was a younger teenager, I missed the excitement of a larger lake and more neighbors. As I'm getting older (sort of) I really enjoy the calmer lake and appreciate what it was like to bring up two young girls to have the chance to play within the thousands of trees and see the thing called the Milky Way which doesn't appear very often in the city.

This weekend was different for me for many reasons. It is again one of the few weekends I get off over the summer. I only get one weekend a month with which to travel to whichever destination I should so choose to visit. For the most part, it is to the cottage that I am bound. This time there were not only my parents and my sister, but also my mom's best friend, her two kids and my partner. Or so we were called because of our matching bracelets. This was the third time in my life that I have brought a man to my cottage that I have invited and the first time it has been someone who I'm involved with.

I was worried for a time that he might not feel the same way about the cottage that I do. Not growing up in Canada with the tradition of going north for the weekends can make a lot of people feel differently about my paradise. That and the slightly large dock spiders that make an appearance every once in awhile. I had been waiting for the longest time to get back to the cottage, since the last time I was there, and wanted to share it with someone who appreciated it.

I will always say that my cottage is the place on earth that is closest to heaven. And for me it is. For the past few years I've been looking for a partner to share that with me. Now I've found it. And I've gotten one step closer to heaven.