Little Woodsy Kid

“David Rader”

I quit my job and returned to freelance status back in June. It was a wicked surreal time that happened so fast my head spun. I was a staff interpreter for a government agency (for a whopping nine months) and while the people were friendly, and the work was decent, it just didn’t feel right. I felt constricted, stifled, and my gut kept telling me to leave or I’d suffer some serious health issues; I have an incredibly sensitive nervous system, I rattle easy these days, and that place was stressing me out.

The strange part of that was, before giving my notice, I’d thought to myself, “My last day will be June 28th”. For some reason, that date fixed itself in my mind, which was weird because June 28th was a Friday, and I don’t work Fridays. But as things unfolded, and my separation date got closer and closer, my supervisor had me come to the office to return my badge and equipment on June 28th—again, on a Friday, a day I didn’t ever work. Might not seem odd, but trust me, it was.

My intuitive knowingness—or my inner kid, rather—poked me once again after we’d scheduled our contractor for some house renos. We had dates and projects worked out, but I had a funny feeling our contractor wouldn’t be able to deliver like he had with some house projects in the past. For some reason, I felt that we’d have to fix up the house ourselves. Lo and behold, our contractor backed out. The details aren’t important, and he did show for, like, three days to do a couple things. Point is I knew something was awry, so hubbyface and I spent two and a half months doing home renos ourselves—with the help of his dad—and our cute little dollhouse was on the market mid-September.

Just one day after the open house, we had three offers. I was beside myself. I mean it. I felt like I was next to myself, watching myself talk on the phone with our realtor—none of it felt real, and my inner kid had no idea what was going on; she just kept tugging at my sleeve with a furrowed brow. I wanted to stop everything from going any further; I wasn’t really sure I wanted to let my house and the small life I’d built go. But once the offer letter was sent (for more than our asking and in cold, hard cash—no, not investors just Massachusetts folks wanting to be New Hampshirites, like most of them), my husband signed it almost immediately while I took my time and cried with each electronic signature.

“Have you signed the offer letter yet?” he kept texting me.

I wanted to text, “No. I don’t want to do this.” But he wouldn’t have liked me much after that, the same way he didn’t like me much when we left Oregon in 2016. “Yes,” I texted while clicking FINISH, tears streaming down my face.

I felt sick.

The four-year-old in me has only ever wanted peace, security, safety, stability. Even as a child, I rattled easy. My little train-track self has felt/experienced years of trauma—whether self-inflicted or not—and this was the first time she, we, felt…peace. Sure, there were things about N.H. that irked me—ghosts I could never shake, crime scenes I kept driving past, old hurts…but it was mine. N.H. was my home. Period. I’d made a life for us there, good and bad. And I was letting all of that—all of what I’d vouchsafed myself and her—slip out of my fingers with a few clicks. It shouldn’t have been so easy.  

I thought for sure there’d be some contingencies during the house inspection since we did some work ourselves. What we did wasn’t at all jank, just not professional contractor level—there was caulking in some obvious places, and the cement pillars in the crawl space holding up the LVL beam was installed by hubbyface and fam. We hosted mice (I’d catch and release them into the woods), there was a small break in the glass of my bedroom window…little things that didn't worry me, and things that I secretly hoped the buyers would snub.

They didn’t. The buyers were giddy as fuck.They didn’t ask for one thing to be addressed. No contingencies, and no backing out since I’d signed the offer. I did ask our realtor, “What happens when a seller backs out after signing?” She’d said she never experienced that but she knew it wouldn’t be good—potential lawsuit.

Well, I didn’t want that.

So, even though I created and pushed the rolling ball out of N.H., now, I didn’t want any part of it.

Just before we closed, on October 21st, the new owners came to Little Woodsy Cottage for the walk-through, wanting a tutorial on certain aspects of the house—woodstove, crawl space, new induction stove, and “My God, how do you keep your shower door so clean?”

“Just spray Clean Shower after you’re done. No need to wipe it.”

The closing was at our realtor’s home office on twenty-five acres of gorgeous land in Gilmanton. My inner four-year-old sat next to me asking, “What's that? What're you writing? When are we going home?” while I signed papers that I didn’t totally pay attention to. I was handed a check, which I folded and stuffed into my wallet. After awkwardly hugging the new owners and our realtor, we left. And, again, I was numb. I didn’t feel what would come rushing into my body later that night.

David somewhere in Pennsylvania

We went to the bank, deposited the check, and each time I spoke with anyone—the bank teller, the waitress at Applebee’s, our first Harvest Host host—I’d say we sold our house while fighting tears, and most people congratulated us. It didn’t feel like congratulations were in order. I felt like I’d duped myself; sold my lake cottage to live in a camper for an undetermined amount of time. I'd made an “adult” decision I had no business making all while my inner child was nothing but confused and sad.

“Why?” she keeps asking.

“I fucked up,” is all I can tell her.

She giggles because I used the F-word, but she knows I did something I can't undo.