The New Old House

Sadness and hope can live in the same room

I’m okay.

I’m saying that a lot lately.

Sometimes I say it to other people. Sometimes to myself.

Of course there is sadness and disorientation and all the feelings I wrote about last week.

But in the midst of it, there are other feelings too. And those feelings are, dare I say, a little trickier to express right now.

Ever since I shared my last two essays, I’ve received so many kind, caring messages from people expressing sadness over my life change.

I so appreciate their care.

I know why people say “I’m so sorry.” I’ve said it to others in the past. It’s hard to know what else to say when someone’s life has cracked open in a way you can’t fully understand from the outside.

Sometimes in public, I sense people looking at me with pity. And when they talk to me, I hear the same words over and over:

Sad. Sorry. Sad. Sorry. Sad.

And while I know the intentions are good, sometimes those conversations leave me feeling heavier than I did before.

Because of course there is sadness. But it’s not only sad.

There is also hope.

And relief.

And little flickers of joy that show up in the middle of the hard. Sometimes within the same day. Sometimes within the same hour.

And I’ve been scared to admit that publicly.

Because I’m realizing many people are uncomfortable with any emotion besides sorrow in the story of divorce.

There’s a script society expects you to follow:

You’re allowed to be devastated.

You’re allowed to be angry.

You’re allowed to fight with your ex.

But relief?

Hope?

Wanting to get along as much as possible?

Admitting there isn’t much drama?

Those seem to confuse people more than the grief does.

And I’ve been met with a lot of deer-in-the-headlights stares when I say them out loud.

Even now, I’m nervous to publish these words. Because I know there are some who will think even an inkling of relief in the ending of a marriage is inappropriate. Or those who will assume that if I feel hopeful, I must not be taking this seriously.

But those people could not be more incorrect. Because grief and hope are not opposites. They surely can exist in the same space at the same time.

And right now, that space happens to be a new old house on a dirt road somewhere on the Wyoming prairie.

My last two essays have been heavy, so today, I want to share one of my recent joys.

The house.

My house.

Even typing that feels strange.

But before I go any further— I want to say this: I know I am deeply fortunate.

I know there are women leaving marriages who are facing terrifying financial realities. I know there are brave women who start over with almost nothing. I know there are women who don’t have the options I have right now.

I don’t take my situation for granted.

I am profoundly thankful that I’ve spent the last sixteen years building businesses that have provided me a way to walk through this chapter with an element of stability. That doesn’t erase the difficulty, but it does give me choices. And I am grateful for that.

Now to the house.

This house is not my other house.

It is not the homestead I built over the last decade-plus.

It is not the same land, the same kitchen, the same barn, the same view. It does not carry the familiar grooves my life had worn into that place.

So I need to say this gently but clearly: please don’t compare them for me.

I know what I left…

The gardens that ended up in photos all over the internet. The corrals that held my doe-eyed Brown Swiss calves. The kitchen featured in two cookbooks and national press articles and countless Youtube videos. The work that went into that soil, that barn, those pens. The memories layered into the walls.

I know it.

I feel it.

But somehow, in the middle of the things I left behind, this new place has provided other things I’ve always wanted but didn’t have there.

A quiet dirt road.

Productive apple trees.

A big red barn.

…with the most romantic hay loft.

An actual root cellar.

A house that felt cozy before I’d even made it mine

The kitchen isn’t me yet.

But it will be.

Oh, it will be.

I have a hundred ideas. Paint colors. Wallpaper. Light fixtures. Little ways to bring warmth into the rooms. Places for cast iron and sourdough and stacks of cookbooks. Ways to breathe myself into the space like I do with every property I’ve ever touched.

It won’t happen all at once, but I trust that process more now than I ever have.

Because this is not my first time building a life. I’m not starting from scratch. This time, I’m starting from experience.

The first time I built a homestead, I was younger and scrappier… I didn’t know what I didn’t know, so I just learned it the hard way. I planted the wrong things. Bought the wrong equipment. Built fences in stupid places. Figured out what mattered by first figuring out what didn’t.

Those mistakes were excellent teachers.

They taught me what I want in a kitchen and what works for garden layouts and where gates should go.

They taught me that beauty matters, but so does function.

They taught me I can learn anything I put my mind to.

And they taught me that I am capable of taking forgotten places and making them beautiful and loved.

So yes, this place is new. But I am not new.

I’m older now. Slightly wiser. A little more bruised.

I know things I didn’t know before.

And this place?

This place holds me. I felt it the first time I walked through the door with the realtor.

It whispered, “Here. You can land here.”

My life has felt loud and harsh in the last few months. Loud with decisions. Loud with other people’s reactions and projections. Loud with logistics and paperwork and the endless tasks that come with untangling one life and beginning another.

But here, there is quiet. And a softness.

Not necessarily externally… There are unpacked boxes and paintbrushes and children running through and my ornery little red dog and countless lists and messes.

But underneath all that, there is steadiness. And peace. This place feels like it can hold the complexity of this new season.

It has enough space for me to be sad in the morning and excited by afternoon.

Because that’s the nuance I’m living in.

Two things can be true.

I am grieving. And I am hopeful.

I am sad. And I am excited.

I am tender. And I am capable.

I have lost things I loved. And I am building something beautiful.

Each does not cancel out the other.

So don’t worry— this isn’t me rushing ahead to the “thriving” or skipping over the ache.

It’s still there.

But so is the quiet knowing I can build again.

Because I’ve built before.

And because somehow, in the middle of all of this, I’m okay.

-Jill

P.S. Next week I’ll tell you more about my garden plans. Yes, it’s a big change to go from 20 raised beds and a monster greenhouse to what I have now. But I’m at peace with it (and even excited?!) to start over in a new growing space and I’ll explain why.