Best of both worlds

We love what is elusive. We chase what is far. We spurn a steady neighbor for some distant star. I know a woman who grew up beside a farm owned by an upbeat guy with great looks, brains and charm. Yet, she never believed him when he said he would help her raise a family filled with all things good. She thought he was too local, too rooted in the soil. Life with him, she felt, would be one of labor and toil. She preferred a remote shot at the sky-high life to a lasting stint as a grounded farmer’s wife. Instead, she wound up hitched to a big-city man who said she reminded him of an actress at Cannes … without a shred of evidence for his smarmy claim that she was Tinseltown-bound and destined for fame. But it wasn’t long before she twigged to his lies and his shameless compulsion to romanticize. She confronted her hubby, swallowed her remorse, and lost half her money in a bitter divorce. Whether it’s dopamine or the fantasy gene, we’re all susceptible to the Hollywood dream. The farmer, though, never lost his smile, and made his dough working his land for a top movie farming show. He now lives with the neighbor who shunned him before, embracing the best of both worlds ... and loving both more.