Where to Go From Nowhere - 1

It’s strange, the twisting turning forks in the road that get one to the place that they are currently standing.  In my case, that place was a sandy brush-covered rise of land, in middle of nowhere Aiken Co, SC. This place was more than a bit of no-body-else-wants-it-earth, though.  It was the edge of a dream, my dream, and I was awake. 

How I ended up on that sandy hill is an interesting, but common, tale.  We were up to our ears in debt, barely making ends meet, and always looking for a way out.  The dream was always “movin’ on up” and “up from the ground came a bubblin’ crude” – the reality was one foolish easy way out, and a lot of other people’s money, after another.  Until two things happened that started us on the path.  I borrowed Dave Ramsey’s Total Money Makeover from the library and we got the internet.

In 2004 I was living in the inner city of Columbia SC, in a cheap, 900 square foot apartment, with my brother and his girlfriend, my husband, three year old son, and was pregnant with baby number two.  My husband took our car to work every day but information, from the library and internet, took me places.   I found Homesteading Today, an internet forum.  The people there said I could build a house that I could afford, live off the land, and I would be happy.  I believed them.  An idea was born.

Long story short –

8 years –

Bankruptcy –

3 more children –

A move to Kansas –

Then to Las Vegas –

A very near divorce –

And four stable years living back in Columbia and dreaming of the future.

The idea that was born in that apartment had percolated for what felt like far too long, was, actually, becoming rather bitter, overdone, and really not much worth drinking.  It was at that moment, when it was very near too late, that I realized we were there.  A workable, though not perfect, solution.  An answer.   A piece of property for our future and our children’s future.  I was standing there, seeing it with new eyes, all the years of thinking, research, and hoping, had become something tangible.  Something we could stand on.

Something I was standing on.