Take Her Down to the Studs

First, we’re going to need to make a huge mess.

2025 house reno, reporting live.

What happens when we gain back the extra time that we assumed would change our lives?

Think: If I could have 3 months, 6 months or one year off, I’d have…

A debut novel.
A new language.
A stamped passport.
Intermediate guitar.
A billion-dollar idea.
Dresser drawers that finally close.
Abs (ignore).

But then, what happens when we loaf atop unprecedented freedom and not much changes?

As someone who’s fantasized about quitting most things, I am in uncharted territory. For the first time, I have nothing to quit.

Through divine timing and a poor job market, I have successfully dismounted from working for anyone else. For the first time in adult history, I have put down more than I’ve picked up.

And truthfully, the extra space is confronting.

Easy is daydreaming about alternative versions of yourself. Difficult is junking the excuses and laying naked to your own creation.

While I’ve long known that I’m done doing shit that I don’t want to do, I haven’t spent much time thinking about what I do want. Instead of being purposeful, I’ve always taken the next reasonable thing that a country breeze blows past.

But today, in my mid-30s, I don’t want to do that. I am actively avoiding tepid opportunities because I want something different.

Plus, no neatly packaged “next thing” has ruffled my gingam curtains. I’ve only been recruited for jobs that have gone nowhere or turned down shoe-ins that dizzied me with boredom.

So, with a constitution to avoid “meh” and the bewilderment of choice, I feel stuck.

Without the well-grooved rigidity of a boss and a paycheck, I’ve been more directionless than I care to admit. Reprogramming a lifetime of being told where to be and what to do is tough.

Designing a new day-to-day is a great privilege, but without clear marching orders, this long-awaited period of freedom has felt ironically stifling.

I think it’s because with certain liberation, we no longer rub up against the boundaries imposed by others. Instead, we must confront the limitations we place on ourselves.

And like our latest, busted, old house project, we have layers of hidden ceilings. Once we remove drywall from one drop ceiling, we hit another ceiling. And then another.

Suddenly, chipping off a layer of lath, plaster, and asbestos (the renovator’s holy trinity) evolves into a 20-yard dumpster bin. To see what we’re truly working with, we have to go all in. We must discard the years of debris that we didn’t even know we were holding onto.

We have to take her down to the studs.

And only once we start ripping to the point of no return can we identify the structural parts that matter—and be rid of the shit that’s slowly sinking us.

The dumpstered shit is the:

“I’m too old.”
“I don’t have the energy to try.”
“I’ve already peaked.”
“My idea won’t make money.”
“I’ll just quit after I start, anyway.”
“If it was gonna happen, it already would’ve.”
“I should’ve started 4 years ago.”
“Failure is embarrassing.”
“They’re better than me.”
“I don’t know where to start.”

And so on.

When we’re adults who’ve been adulting for a while, we absorb a mature outlook. Unless we’re diagnosable, we have a realistic amount of dumpstered shit to lug around. We’re no longer naive to how hard it is to make things happen.

Plus, when we want something that uniquely suits our quirky, broken, ambitious selves, there is no playbook. We have to conjure it, confront what’s holding us back, and choose to trudge ahead anyway.

But once we commit to ripping down our first ceiling, we’re officially in this bitch.

We can level ourselves up with a patch job, or we can go for it. And if we do, we’re going to have to make a huge mess first.

But only then do we get the chance to truly rebuild.