Never Again (Again)

On drywall dust, being good at things I no longer want to do, and choosing the meaningful thing.

I don’t know if it’s the three-hour commutes, the never-ending renovation, or the string of untimely deaths, but lately, creativity has been in short supply.

I am in a place where I can’t wait to get out of this place.

I am over my ass hurting from sitting in the car too long.

I am done talking about wiring with tradespeople who ask, “Can I speak to your husband?”

I am tired of deflecting what I’ve been up to because the truth is too dizzying for human consumption.

This isn’t some kind of depression. It’s objective reality.

We chose to buy a full-gut house at the top of the market. With tight margins, I’ve acted as permit administrator, designer, material-getter, orderer, painter, negotiator, and yes, would-be contractor (cat herder). It’s been on us to sift through a never-ending clusterfuck of decisions, manual labour, and con artists to bring our vision to life.

As someone who believes regret is boring and unenlightened, I refuse to let this difficult chapter be in vain. So instead, I look down at my calloused, unmanicured hands and think: “never again”.

Never again will I be so flippant about a decision that asks so much of me.

Once the house is done, and we either move in or sell it, I don’t want to forget this feeling. It’s an internal nagging that I am, yet again, wasting time.

For reasons still to unpack, I have a history of choosing paths of resistance. And more often than not, they involve drywall dust. So much so that I have become fluent in the dialect known as “construction mans”.

I will rally family, bank lenders, and a Facebook Marketplace “concrete guy” to erect a Pinterest-worthy house out of a dilapidated hole. I will drive 35 hours in a U-Haul on logging roads to transport kitchen cabinets. I will watch videos on in-floor heating so bleak you have to suck on a Fisherman’s Friend just to feel something.

And yet, I can’t talk earnestly about my creative work. After a lifetime of writing personally and professionally, I still wouldn’t call myself a writer.

I deflect, diminish, and distract my way out of going deeper.

I think I’m afraid of choosing the meaningful thing.

Recently, I was asked, “If you could do or be anything, what would it be?”

Before the question landed, I knew I wouldn’t have a real answer. I felt a tinge of embarrassment.

I’m 36, not 14.

And truthfully, I probably had more willingness to speak to my dreams as a barrel-chested farm kid who used a KitKat lunch bag as a purse. Back then, I knew very little about life’s mechanics, but wasn’t afraid to acknowledge what I was good at or call big things into existence.

I feel guilt and shame about not knowing what I want. Writing may be part of it, but it’s never felt like it.

Somewhere along the way, figuring out what it is has been relegated to a two-minute agenda item, sandwiched between Q-tipping my ears and hitting my e-transfer limit.

I’ve always found it easier to figure out what I don’t want.

I don’t want to argue about a pony wall that never got framed. I don’t want to feel like my life is on hold while I try to escape a sinkhole of tasks. And I definitely don’t want to brush my teeth outside with a water bottle after a year without plumbing.

I have talents worth using in ways that feel like me—and they don’t involve ordering another dumpster from “Bin There, Dump That”.

Perhaps that’s part of the guilt: knowing what I’m capable of, but not knowing what I want to do with it.

I already know what I can carry.

But right now, I just want to carry more of myself.