Dear World: I Bought a Big, Weird House in the Countryside as a Woman By Myself

LOOK AT ME DOING WHAT I WANT

I’m Ash, and I’m a writer, traveler, nonconformist & nomad, and every week I’m sharing funny field notes from around the world. Currently, I’m in America writing about what it’s been like to return home to my small town, twenty years after living abroad.

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In May, I left Costa Rica.
I went to my hometown.
And I bought a big, weird, old fucking house.
(THERE ARE SPIDERS. WE’VE BEEN OVER THIS.)

It is now September. I am now in the house. And now all I do is wander around trying to find can openers and wondering why there are worms in the light cover and contemplating whether the fact that I can bounce on the floor boards means I’m going to fall through the floor??????????? (You can see the dining room chandelier shake downstairs when I do it in the room above. Part of me feels like this is a cool feature of an old house. The other part of me thinks: HOLY HARD-BOILED TITS, WHAT HAVE I DONE.)

Other things I’ve been contemplating: whether the old hemlocks behind the house are going to fall on my face and murder me violently. Why the electric company charged me an $1100 deposit to turn on my electricity. Whether I should install all new windows??? For winter? Because winter is a thing? Also: what the fuck is well water? Where is this coming from? Don’t tell me the water table, because WHAT IS A WATER TABLE???? Why did no one teach me about this? I also have questions about these toilets. I have very little faith that the matter being placed inside of them is actually going to get where it’s supposed to. I realize I sound like I just escaped from a cult in Utah after being underground for two decades, but that is sort of how it feels when you come back from living abroad: everything is fascinating / terrifying / new / foreign—especially when you’ve been on the move for so long, avoiding the kinds of activities you worried would make you too normal.

Kids.
Vans.
Schools.
Pie.
(Pie is especially threatening.)
Trash cans.
Lawn care.
Pressure washers.

OH MY GOD, DO YOU KNOW ABOUT PRESSURE WASHERS?!?!

My friend Jolene, who is a total badass, came over with hers the other day and I could’ve sworn I was high on acid. I’ve never even been high on anything, but the before/after results were that good. She took 50 years of grime and wiped it away in an instant. THIS IS CRACK. Like, I’m buying one immediately so I can do this as therapy. In fact, it was so good, I have to attach a photo. LOOK AT THIS PHOTO. Left steps versus right steps! Left steps were pressure washed. Right ones were not yet. 😲 Can your brain even focus after seeing a photograph of this magnitude???

I can’t wait to tackle the guest house. Because somehow I purchased not one house, but two houses?! The guest house matches the big house, but in miniature. It’s cute and adorable with a rocking chair porch and white hydrangeas (hello, future writing retreats!) and it’s equally as old and I have every intention on turning it into a Scottish-inspired hunting / whisky / ski cabin, complete with tartan carpeting in the bedroom and quirky dog paintings and horse statues and fox-themed throw pillows and old books and antler lamps and brass trinkets and probably antique canopy beds orrrrrrrr am I the only freak who dreams about stuff like this?

I’m super duper in over my head and it feels amazing. There was a swarm of wasps on the front porch yesterday and, after briefly hysterically shouting profanities into the woods, I got a can of Raid and sprayed the living fuck out of them. And when all those little assholes dropped to the ground, I remembered an all-mighty truth: I am a fucking badass, too.

WE ARE ALL SUCH CAPABLE BADASSES.

You are capable! You can figure out stuff! You can do hard things even if you’re a little delirious while you do them!

That whole adage of “stick to what you know” was made up by an insecure man who didn’t want to be showed up by his peers. None of us would ever grow as humans if we just “did what we knew.” You gotta do the weird & wonderful stuff you know nothing about, but are salivating over. You gotta find the things that are big and scary because otherwise you will stay small and unremarkable. (And will probably smell bad.)

So much of our own “MEHNESS” comes from believing the story of “Who am I to…?”

”Who am I to buy a home in the middle of fucknuts Pennsylvania??? I can’t even cook an eggroll.”

”Who am I to start a business??? I can’t even start a diet.”

”Who am I to charge money for my writing? I can’t even spell ‘platypus.’” (Okay, fine, I spelled it on the first try. Did I win a puppy?!?!)

Here’s what I have learned:

The fucking joy is in the doing—not the done.

This is why my favorite mantra for this fall is:

Chase the weird.

Surely there are weird things you’ve been secretly interested in! Homesteading? Urban planning? Wreath making? Flower photography? Old-ass houses like me?

That’s pleasure. That’s how you wring out the best of life. You find the little sparks, and you say YES.

BE out of your depth.
BE in over your head.
BE ignorant.
BE a fool.

And have so much fun doing it all.

Because: You are a capable motherfucker. You will always figure it out. Real talk: when’s the last time you failed??? Your name isn’t associated with failure—you are not a person who fails. And, this won’t be any different.

So—

Buy the house.
Take the trip.
Sell it all.
Start anew.
Enroll in that class.
Submit the deposit.
Do the weird.
Chase the happy.
And remember who you are.

Being super duper in over your head doesn’t always mean you’re flailing.

Turns out, this is actually what it feels like to fly.