Cabin Conflict 

The sun shining through the blinds. Birds chirping in the trees. The wind whistled through the mountain. The sky had a tone of anger. Damp golf courses preparing for the storm. The bears woke up to 21 degrees on a wet, bitter cold day in the town of Highlands, North Carolina.

It was the spring of 2020, and my family was going on vacation to South Carolina. On our way there we stopped in a little town called Highlands. More than 4000 feet up a mountain. We wanted to stay a couple days to try something new. Everyone with a joyful smile and laugh. You could tell that everyone knew everyone. We did fun activities like golf and kayaking. For fun my mom and I went to some open houses. Days passed and my mom and I fell in love with highlands. We thought about buying but the timing just wasn’t right. The next morning I was awakened by rain hitting the tin roof. It sounded like little tiny bullets. After the rain calmed down we left the highlands knowing that we would be back soon. 

Later that same year my mom and I decided that we would go to the highlands for a girls' weekend with some friends. Still the timing wasn’t right to buy a house  and we didn’t want to rush things. We knew that it was really hard to buy something right now because the market was so active. We waited for a while and soon after we placed an offer. It was on a lot and the plan was to build it from the ground up. Soon later we were in a bidding war and we lost the lot . We didn’t lose hope. We kept going to the open house and finally we found one. A month later we placed an offer for a house. Tall ceilings, luxury kitchen, huge yard. We thought this was the dream house.  The next day we found ourselves in another bidding war. It was a really long one but at the end we lost again. We were all very sad since we all thought that was our dream home. I was definitely frustrated that things weren’t going our way. For a while there was nothing on the market. So we took a break from looking at buying  a house for a while. Months and months passed and the next time we were in highlands was the closing day of our future cabin. The house was in terrible shape. Floor ripped from the ground. Furniture probably from centuries ago. In my mind I thought how can this cabin ever look nice.I thought it was never going to come together. I was upset because things were going so slow. The world was still recovering from the Pandemic and It was really hard to find people to fix up the cabin. My mom reminded me that you need to have a vision for the house. She said that good things take time and learning to have patiences. Everything happens for a reason so I knew that I had to stay positive. We started working in the cabin as soon as possible. Every couple weeks we went down to work on the cabin.  It had almost been a year and things started coming together. It looks like a whole different place now!

Now, we love to go up to the cabin for long weekends or trips. I have learned that things happen for a reason and you have to stay positive. Secondly, good things like this take lots of  time and effort. The big lesson for me was not to take things for granted and that I should be lucky and excited when I get to try new experiences. Highlands is now one of my favorite places to go and every time I am there it shows me how lucky I am to have another place to call home.