Breaking The Silence Of A Hard Season

I’ve been silent. For months. Uninspired, frustrated, sad, angry. I’ve been walking through one of the hardest seasons of life and one that I haven’t been ready to write about yet. I’m processing. Grieving the loss of the way I had dreams planned out, life mapped out in my perfect planner mindset. It is a season, where once again, I am reminded that we are not in control of this life journey. A season where I so desperately wanted to be in control of it. A season where I wasn’t ready to let go of the reins.

I’m still knee deep in the suck to be honest with you. But, like the sun finally shining up in this grey Skagit Valley sky, I am feeling some glimmers of hope amidst the deep frustration these days.

I am usually an eternal optimist. I wear those rose colored glasses with pride and am constantly encouraging others around me to do the same. I don’t like to feel the sting of hurt and I don’t like to dabble too long in the realm of negativity. It is just how I am wired. But these past many months, I’ve allowed myself to sit with the emotions that I don’t love.

Admist the sallow, the desire to write and share the frustration of this season has been absent. I have felt more like I’m just trudging through each day and the last thing I’ve wanted to do is revisit it through sharing on here. After all, this is Haven Illume. A space created to bring and inspire joy.

But I am human and life just plain sucks sometimes. As I make the intentional decision to try to break out of this grey cloud, my heart knows that sharing will help me process and perhaps create connection to any of you who are also walking through a season of struggle to know you are not alone.

Time and again, I’ve envisioned finally coming through this season to the other side and writing all about this grandiose journey. It would be then I could share with you all of the lessons learned. Because once we are out of the canyon, it is always easy to see the pathway of it, rather than when we are in the depths of it with towering walls around us.

I’m writing to you from the depths of the canyon.

I know, it is in the canyon when we lean on faith and that’s what I’m trying my best to do now. The normal human being side of me still wants to scream in anger and feels hot tears of distraught streaming down my cheeks as I write this. I hear the voice in my heart telling me this is all part of the journey of my life and that there are bigger and better plans ahead, but I’ve squashed that voice out over the course of months now. Pinched it out, like two fingers on a match squeeze the life out of a flame.

I know in my heart that we can’t always control our circumstances and that God has the ultimate plan for our life, but like a two year old child, all I’ve wanted to do is sprawl out on the floor in anguish, scream and throw a full on temper tantrum.

If you’ve been here for a while and read about my Three Year Journey That Has Changed Me and about Building Cedar Grove Farm, you know that the culmination of experiences, life lessons and dreams has all brought me (and my family) to where we are today…on the brink of building our dream home and starting a farm that will provide nourishment, beauty and joy that we can share with our community.

I’ve been building plans and dreams about our farm for the past couple of years. Through the leap we took to sell our house and set out to find the land to create this dream on. Through the many properties before this one that we found but weren’t quite right. Through year long subdivision process when we finally found this place. We’ve dug deep for patience, for faith and have held fast to this dream.

We finally closed on the sale of our land and got right to designing our home. The design took nine months and the rising cost of materials had us nervous but we persevered. We had never done this before and didn’t know what to expect through the process. We didn’t know the questions to ask and the things to discuss but googled the heck out of it all and thought we were on a good track.

The plans were complete and we were so excited. After nine long months, we finally had plans for the house we had dreamed of. A space that was modest in size but cozy, charming and had all of the essentials we needed. After sending our final plans to our builder, the floodgates seemed to come down. Our bid came back at $200k+ over budget. We were distraught and felt hopeless. So much time and investment gone and a home we truly could not afford to build.

And so we started over after all of those months. With new house plans for a small 1500 sq foot home with only the essentials. As basic as could be and a wonderful new builder to guide us more clearly.

A small house has always been what we wanted. This farm has never been about the house, it has always been about the full experience. The gardens for growing, the space for our kids to run and play, a future space for guests to come and stay and find solace and respite among the gardens. A place for community centric workshops and farm to table dinners - a place for connections and memories made. A place to pour into nature, allow nature to give back to us and share that abundance with the community. But having a small home to live is essential, obviously. And, so in sparing you the details of the frustration and slew of emotions felt through the phases, we were determined to move forward.

We decided we would get our gardens going and distract ourselves by getting our hands dirty and planting. We got a water tank and mapped out all of the gardens. We studied what we would plant when, tested our soil, studied companion planting and tilled the the ground. The first garden plan proved to be too tricky with the watering system we would need to put into place and so we started again. Re-mapped and re-tilled and waited for the ground to dry out…and waited, and waited, and waited. And after the rainiest spring on record, our ground is still too wet to plant. The gardens that we had hoped to be a big source of joy in the midst of frustration, had become yet another part of the frustration itself.

In the midst everything, we lost my Mema. She was the absolute rock of my world. My best friend. The woman who we named Cami after and the constant in my life. She was heart and soul and breath of fresh air. In her, I found home. I found strength. I found love. I found who I wanted to be.

I know how damn lucky I am to have had the grandparents I did and I never took it for granted. I loved visiting them. I loved listening to their stories about life and love and how they met. I asked their advice on how to have a successful marriage as they had done. And I promise Craig daily that I will, as they advised and did, “take care of each other.” I loved staying the night at their house as a child, and then as an adult with my children, and hearing them tell each other they loved each other randomly through the day.

Papa’s massive produce garden and Mema’s gorgeous flower gardens are my inspiration for our gardens. I’ll never forget how she savored the smell of a daphne and relished in the time spent together helping us create the gardens at our first home. I loved picking bouquets of Mema’s “yellows” (primroses) from the time I was a little girl until the last bouquet I picked her the day before she passed away. I vow to create a life centered upon love the way she and Papa always did. They were the most generous, kind and wonderful people I have ever known and I miss them more that I can ever say. Losing Mema and having spent 3 years missing Papa was such a huge loss and left a void in my already delicate heart.

Now, back in attempting to build land…we reconnected with the bank to gauge where things were with the new interest rate hikes. Before moving forward with our new plans, we wanted to ensure all of the numbers still worked out. Hanging up the phone from that call a month ago, the feeling of complete defeat was deafening. With the cost of materials still so high and with interest rates skyrocketing, the cost to build even this small home will put us so far beyond budget that it is unattainable.

So, here we are. Bottom of the canyon. Grave bottom of the freaking canyon. To give perspective…when we started this journey two years ago, the cost to build was around $125/sq foot and rates were at 2.5%. Now the cost to build is $200/sq foot and rates are headed toward 8% and no end in sight.

Not to mention, we are now two years in to commuting 30 minutes to school and work every single day, at least twice. I’m so grateful for this place to live, don’t get me wrong. Please don’t get me wrong. I thank God for it daily. But, I am tired and gas is over $5 a gallon…so that all adds up.

Through the anger and they grey days (literally and mentally) I’m awakening to the understanding that this is all part of a larger plan. The walls we keep hitting, though I hate them, I know are leading us to where we are supposed to be. I’m unsure of what that looks like yet, but I know we will get there. And, I’m so glad to have a determined and faith-filled husband by my side through it all. We seem to find a balance of allowing one another to wallow and then helping pulling each other out of it and for that I am so very grateful.

And for the past number of months, I’ve just needed to grieve the loss of how I envisioned this all going. To sit and simmer in frustration. Perhaps to allow myself to feel emotions I don’t like and to turn them into fuel to make this dream happen. However and whenever it all pans out.

I know we have an amazing God in charge of our life and I know that we are on this earth for a purpose. Our dream and plans for our farm are created from the combination of the gifts that Craig and I both have. Gifts that I believe we are put in this beautiful world to share - Craig’s love for farming, growing and family and my love for design, community and connection. I know we will create this place and we will continue this dream, we just don’t quite know what that looks like yet.

This past four years life life (ie - new baby, new job, new house, this journey…) has been such a lesson in learning to be flexible, to adapt, to lean on faith and to realize what is important to us. About letting go and trusting that God’s plan for this life is better than what I have in my mind. I will keep those things front and center of mind as we continue through this journey. I am also realizing the importance of allowing myself to feel angry and frustrated and to sit in those emotions that I so dislike.

I realize that walking through those emotions, I feel a bit like a lemon in a juicer. Twisting and gutting me in ways that help me hone in on what really matters and pour the best part out. Lately I feel like that battered lemon but I know that the contents being poured in the bottom of this metaphorical bowl, are the good life lessons I’m learning.

And I know, in God’s timing, that those lessons - that lemon juice - will make one hell of a pitcher of lemonade. And you - friends and family who have cheered us along in this journey - are the first invited over to join us for a glass on the porch, looking out over our gardens. I promise, we will get there and I can’t wait to look back and celebrate together.