The House of My Dreams Was Also the House That Almost Killed Me

The other day I was thinking about the house I thought would change my life.

I wanted the big house.
I wanted the big yard.
I wanted to escape the city — the noise, the traffic, the fast-paced life that never gave me a moment to breathe.

I pictured peace. A slower rhythm. A place I could make my own. A house with potential to renovate and turn into my dream.

And I found it.

But what no one told me — what I didn’t realize — is that my nervous system wasn’t ready for it.

I went from condo living in the heart of the city, working in retail fashion, having convenience and comfort at my fingertips… to suddenly trying to live like “Laura Ingalls.”

The Death of an Old Identity

The shift was brutal.

It took me years to even understand what was happening:
I wasn’t just renovating a house — I was dismantling my old identity.

The loneliness of being outside the city, away from connection, hit me harder than I expected.
I felt invisible. Like my life had shrunk into chores and survival.

Depression crept in quietly.
Renovations dragged on endlessly, always dusty, always unfinished.
And in the process, I lost pieces of myself.

For almost ten years, I was grieving the death of who I once was… without realizing that was what I was doing.

What My Body Remembered

The stress of trying to carry it all in silence eventually showed up in my body.

I kept it all in — the sadness, the resentment, the exhaustion — because I didn’t feel I had anyone to share it with.

The weight of it all wasn’t just emotional. I gained almost 30 pounds, carrying the burden in my body before I ever found the words to speak it.

And eventually, my body turned those unspoken feelings into illness.

Cancer was the wake-up call I never wanted… but maybe the one that forced me to finally face the truth.

The Becoming

It took me almost ten years to rebuild myself inside these walls.
To stop fighting the silence and start listening to it.
To learn who I was becoming.

Now, I see it differently. This house wasn’t a punishment. It was my initiation.

It was where I learned that the life of your dreams will destroy you if your body, mind, and spirit aren’t yet ready to hold it.

It was also where I discovered that the support I needed was inside me all along.
My expectations had been too focused on the outside — on being seen, on proving myself — when what I really needed was to see myself first.

The chaos of the unfinished renovations, the constant dust, the endless noise of construction — it was all a mirror of the chaos I was carrying within me.

And the truth is, the answers were never in the waiting for someone else to see me.
They were in me. They always had been.

Gratitude for the House That Witnessed It All

Today, I thank this house.

It witnessed every tear, every dream, every disappointment.
It held space for the loneliest nights and the quiet moments of hope.
It saw the version of me that almost gave up — and the version of me that rose again.

This house — the one that once almost killed me — became the container where I shed old identities and rebuilt my life.

And now, I still live here. But the way I see it has transformed.
Every corner feels alive. Full. Strong. Sacred.

Because in the end, this house didn’t just break me.
It made me.
And today, I love it more than ever.