Written by: Janelle Brown
As Independence Day approaches, I've found myself thinking a lot about what independence really means.
When we're young, independence feels exciting. It's getting your driver's license. Moving into your first apartment. Earning your own paycheck. Making your own decisions. And for the most part, there's a roadmap for all of it.
Society has a way of laying out the expected path: graduate, start a career, get married, buy a house, raise a family. There are milestones, timelines, and plenty of people who have walked the road before us. Even when it feels scary, there's a general sense of what comes next.
At 57, independence feels a little different.
There isn't always a roadmap for starting over. There isn't a checklist for rebuilding a life, pursuing a dream you've never attempted before, or creating a future that looks completely different from the one you imagined twenty years ago. The trail is less defined. Sometimes you're making it as you go.
In the morning, I drive out to the farm with a list of things that need to be done.
And if I'm being completely honest, my first impulse almost every single day is to turn around and go home. Not because I don't want this life. Quite the opposite. It's because I care so much about getting it right.
I've read the books. I've watched the videos. I've spent hours researching. I can tell you what the experts recommend and what should happen next.
But standing in the middle of an empty field with a planned project in front of me is an entirely different thing.
That's usually when the panic shows up.
"What if I do it wrong?"
"What if I waste money?"
"What if all these plans don't work?"
"What if everyone realizes I have no idea what I'm doing?"
Take our flower beds, for example.
When we first laid them out, I was certain we had a good plan. We researched, measured, discussed options, and got to work.
Then we discovered the first approach wasn't going to work the way we thought it would. So we changed it. Then we discovered the second approach wasn't much better. So we changed it again.
At this point, we've redesigned those beds three different times. Not because we were careless, but because some things simply can't be learned from a book, a YouTube video, or a spreadsheet.
Sometimes the only way to figure out what works is to get your hands dirty and discover what doesn't.
And now we're facing another challenge.
The flowers are planted, but the well isn't in yet. We're in the middle of a significant drought, and every day brings the same question: How are we going to keep these plants alive until permanent water is available?
I wish I could tell you I have a perfectly crafted solution. I don't. What I do have is a willingness to keep looking for one.
That's becoming a familiar theme around here.
The farm seems determined to teach me that progress isn't a straight line. It's a series of adjustments, course corrections, mistakes, pivots, and trying again.
And maybe that's what's really hitting home for me right now.
Independence isn't confidence.
Independence isn't having all the answers.
Independence is taking the next step even when you're unsure.
It's showing up anyway.
It's planting the seed when you don't know for certain if it will grow.
It's trusting that experience will teach you what research never can.
This chapter of my life has been filled with moments where I've had to walk into unfamiliar territory. Building Taeda Farms may be one of the biggest. Every mistake made and every problem solved is another reminder that freedom isn't found on the other side of certainty.
Freedom is found in the willingness to begin before you feel ready.
Trusting yourself enough to take the next step, even when the path isn't clear.
To make a decision.
To discover it wasn't the right one.
To adjust.
And then keep going.
The older I get, the more I realize that freedom isn't the absence of uncertainty. Freedom is knowing that uncertainty doesn't get to make the decisions anymore.
