Shannanigan's Search for More...

I stand on the balcony of the house overlooking Megan's Bay, a beautiful beach that I may, possibly, overlook for every morning of the rest of my life. Below me, the bush has been nearly dominated by the machetes of my boyfriend and his father; the ground is visible and the hillside is an expanse of thin tree stumps, save for the palm trees that were spared. In the coming month, a bulldozer will rip through the land and churn it all into a workable sea of dirt...

Chris has the plans for his house all drawn up, and it is gorgeous. I had never dreamed of watching a house get built from the ground up, especially one so beautiful as the one he has planned. I may even help build the house, and help design the interior. One thing Chris is determined about, though, is that I will live in that house with him and we will begin our adult life together in it...

I look past the beach and out over the ocean. Small island keys dot the ocean for miles, and out towards the east there is Tortola, St. John, Virgin Gorda, and Jost Van Dyke...at night when I look in that direction I see clumps of dim yellow lights lining the roads up and down the hills. The one key directly out from Megan's Bay is called Hans Lollick; Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt were just there a few days ago filming a movie. That's the same beach where Chris and I first met, on a handmade swing tied to a palm tree that was growing out over the water. How fairytale can this relationship get? We meet on an uninhabited island and now we're building a house that has a view of that island...

Everything is anything but certain. Who knows if Chris and I will still be together throughout the building of the house? Who knows if I will stay here to teach or move somewhere else? Who knows anything about anything? Nothing is for sure right now. I don't even know where I am going to live when I finish school in a year...

But having this view is not something I can really complain about. What I can complain about is what it may cost me...