Implications of Cabin Living

My partner and I purchased a cabin nestled in 1,700 acres of Wisconsin forest (near Hayward) last December. We love it.  Rich diversity of birds, a visiting 400 pound black bear (and two cubs), sunsets over the lake surrounded by dense forest, night skies with blazingly bright stars….we could go on and on with tales of beauty, charm and even awe. Our goals?  A simpler and more balanced life; more immersion with nature; and escaping urban living that does not hold the value to us that it once did.

But I do have some concerns.  Our carbon footprint has greatly increased in size—we waste far more fossil fuels than before shuffling between two places  );  We have shifted our attention away from the city/SLP life (from a resource perspective), so maintenance rules over enhancements; and we find ourselves dropping friends quickly…a startling reality is that our previous connections were oftentimes based more on entertainment exchanges than it was on common values.

But, you see, to us, this new passion also serves as a life experiment.  Will we eventually move from being visitors on weekends to living there as our primary residence?  Does retirement (or aging in general) mean rural living trumps city living?  What truths will we realize?  How rocky will finding this new life rhythm be?  Once finding it, will it be sustainable?  And then in the quiet of the night, can we truthfully say this makes us happy?

But this is my scariest secret…accepting just who I am…separated from career goals/successes (a mistaken, yet common, identity association) and social norms.  It’s applying that eternal “what I am over what I do.” There is a new rawness to what we are doing that I wish was more exhilarating than it was sobering.