Year 2025 Opener
So much had already happened at the beginning of the year.
By the time spring showed up, we were exhausted.
Even our garden reflected it. The land, orchard and garden were unpruned, unfertilized, untamed, unattended.
And I had to let something go:
The pressure of forced food production.
Because trying to control growth—while everything in life felt out of control—was breaking me.
More Than Spring, Springing Up
Inside the house, things weren’t much different.
The kids had entered that phase where they were at each other's throats in a shared bedroom.
Constant friction. No real rest.
My eldest had all but moved out of the bedroom and started passing out in our office/den/library/learning room.
Except… that space wasn’t built for rest either.
Between the surround sound and our booty-shaking LoveSac couch, their sleep was getting interrupted in ways that made everyone rethink their leisure and nighttime wine downs.
Our spaces weren’t just full—they were colliding. We were bumping into gym equipment. The kitchen could bearly support one chef as two more were stewing.
And then the scorpions started showing up in the living room.
Like… okay. Cool. Sure. We'll become a Texas wildlife conservatory now too. We'll add them to the list of wasps, bees, ants, termites, field mice, birds, cats and other visiting wild life on four legs.
It was all just too much before the first 90 degree day of Spring in Texas.
Thorns In Our Space
What I didn’t expect was how much this would affect ME.
My office was gone.
Which meant my “me time” had nowhere to go except our bedroom.
So my nights became this quiet negotiations. If I wanted to crochet, read, draw, research a topic it meant keeping me partner awake from the small dim bug lamp that turned out to be not as small or dim as we thought in the dead of night.
And that’s when it hit me.
It’s one thing to expect kids to share space. It’s another conversation whether that actually works long term.
And then there is being a grown adult, with no space of my own, when I am the one constantly holding space for everyone else.
Feeling imprisoned like that. It does something to you.
At 40, I had less privacy than I did at 16.
And yes—I recognize the privilege in even saying that.
But that realization still tugged at something deep. It tugged at the mission to do better for our kids. Not to give them less than what we had growing up. Rather to expand on our foundations.
Because this wasn’t just about space.
It was about capacity.
Ours was gone.
What's the Goal?
We couldn’t keep living like that.
Not if we wanted to grow. Not if our unschooling wasto remain easy, free flowing and restful; laced with science projects, self taught cooking lessons a full library and projects that didn't need to be cleaned up before completion.
So we made a decision:
We needed more.
More land.
More room.
More space to exist without constantly being on top of each other.
Not as an upgrade. As a necessity.
And once we made that decision, everything shifted.
We begain organizing all the planning we'd been building for years.
Finalizing blueprint designs.
Looking for land.
Meeting suppliers.
Talking to vendors.
Running numbers.
We decided to finally move forward with launching our construction contracting business. Which meant:
Freezing spending.
Interviewing banks.
Finding a realtor who actually understood what we were trying to do.
It was all in motion.
The house went on the market with a listing so good I almost wanted to buy it myself.
Our Sunday coffee dates turned into land searches and boardmember construction meetings.
Material lists.
Layouts.
Procurement searching.
It felt like we were on the path we needed to be on.
Like we were finally aligning our environment with the life we were trying to live.
Outside Factors
And then the economy dipped & the world erupted.
Not gradually.
Sharply.
The kind of drop that makes everything you’ve planned feel unstable and selfish overnight.
Our portfolio took a nose dive while suppliers warned us prices would jump by an “unknown amount”. It felt like 2020 all over. All the planning and prep work was wiped from possible to “WTF figure it out.”
And all of this was unfolding against a backdrop that felt increasingly hostile and unstable.
Wars were breaking out.
Palestine فلسطين was being disappeared in plain sight.
Brown skin was becoming a problem again with old eugenic thinking resurfacing dressed up in modern political language. All while white immigrants still found softer landings.
Family separation kept circling back as policy, as if history doesn’t leave receipts. There was this chilling return of ideas that should have stayed buried long ago.
So no, it wasn’t just our finances shaking. It felt like the whole ground was shifting.
But, we were already under contract with a realtor and had moved out of our home so as to NOT disturb the kids’ lifestyle. Already out of our home trying to keep things stable for the kids while strangers walked through what used to be our space.
Pressure
Family pressure.
Financial pressure.
And then… my body added its voice.
Because it had been carrying all of this too.
I thought I was fine.
Until I wasn’t.
My arm went numb.
My body froze.
And the only thought I could form was:
“Wow… this is what a heart attack feels like?”
That was the moment everything caught up.
Not just the move.
Not just the money.
Not just the space.
All of it!
This was Month One.
We thought the hardest part was realizing we had outgrown our space.
It wasn’t. That was just the beginning.
Honest Reflection
When the environment stops supporting the people inside it, something has to change. Environment isn’t just where learning happens. It’s what makes learning possible. Or impossible. Because when the environment is off, everything feels off—including your capacity to show up the way you want to.