The Proposal

Not that kind, we were already married at the start of this journey after all. I'm referring to the "lets ditch this place and move states away to farmstead" proposal.

I'd imagine that our Hard Reset started pretty similarly to many veteran urban-to-country millennials. COVID hit and caused us to question a lot. Honestly tho, in the early days of our relationship we talked a lot about goals and dreams and one thing we both knew was that we wanted a little house on a nice piece of land to escape the stress and come together. Andrew wanted a garage to build stuff and I wanted to wake up to my horse in the back yard. Seemed simple enough, but not really. Land in the Philly metro is expensive, working sucks and I was starting my massage business.Encouraging my parents to invest in some commercial property was smart for sure. We'd rehab it, live in it to cut back expenses and I'd have the stability of a decent and affordable landlord. 5 years is what we thought it would take to save up enough dough to buy our forever micro farm.

But then life got in the way. We had to work, me in Pottstown and Andrew's home base was 40 minutes away. Finding affordable land within a reasonable commute was off the table. We settled on buying a small house with a garage that wasn't in a town, but more of a rural neighborhood. Andrew's job caused him to be on the road all the time. It was physically exhausting and we missed each other. Managing a two person household which included 3 dogs and a cat, plus a business while not having access to your partner was nothing short of terrible. So Andrew did what Andrew does and quite that job for something that didn't require travel. That home time came with a financial sacrifice. Worthwhile but further from our goal of rural neighborhood.

Amongst all that, COVID hit and my business was put on hold until further notice. If you've ever been told your business isn't contributing an important thing to society, you get where I'm going. If you were blessed to be "essential", I assure you it's a weird head space to find yourself in. So there I was with nothing but time on my hands. I started by cleaning everything. Then I moved on to refinishing our stairs. Then I painted the walls. After that I enrolled in a virtual ashram and did a 200 hr yoga teacher training. Eventually I had nothing left to distract myself but Netflix, the internet and my thoughts.

In comes the strangest way the universe may have ever intervened into two people's lives. The short lived but hilarious tv show Bless This Mess. Here's a link for those of you who haven't experienced the glory. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9418572/

As I watched these two people have absolutely no business doing what they were doing, I came to the same conclusion any rational person would - I can do that too! And so it began, my quest for affordable land. Now I may not be a grounded woman possessing logic or an ounce of practicality, but I am an excellent problem solver. I knew developers were on hold due to lack of workers. I knew building materials were expensive because of lack of workers, and because of math I knew that land prices were at an all time low. It was our time to act.

I spent many days on realtor.com downloading listings and putting them into a power point. I added proven ways to use your land to generate income. I researched raw land vs developed land, which I immediately realized we had a budget for raw with a hefty dash of feral. So I put together this amazing power point presentation and practiced a speech. I was going to sell Andrew on moving away from everything and every one we knew. I was prepared to show him that our dream was worth it through logic, metrics and statistics.

When I was finally fully prepared, I patiently waited for him to complete his (what I secretly referred to as) reentry routine. Once he was settled in I was there. "I have a proposal for you. I've figured out a way for us to afford having that land we've always dreamed of, but we need to act quickly to take advantage of the market. We'd also have to leave the state probably a few hours away from here."

Before I could pull up the power point or even continue on to the remainder of my pitch, he smiled and loudly said "YES! Let's do it".

And that is pretty much how our relationship works. One of us hyper-fixates on something, stresses ourselves out and then the other comes in and simplifies it with one or two words.

The power point was abandoned for then, but it would make a reappearance in the near future. We sat, we talked. We discussed ideal lot size, weighed out different states, finance options, life goals, acceptable travel time to family, desired characteristics of the land, ect.

Looking back, I wonder how much Andrew actually believed this was going to become a real thing vs how much he was having fun entertaining my brain. He swears I can do anything, he trusts me completely when I set a goal or propose something absolutely preposterous. Which although flattering, does bring his sanity into question.

TTFN,

P