From Van Life to My Forest Cottage | Starting Over at 43

I just moved into my little forest cottage tucked in the woods of the Pacific Northwest, and at 43, it doesn’t feel like I’m starting a new chapter. It feels like I cracked open an entirely different book.

A few years ago, this life looked nothing like it does now.

In 2020, when the world shut down, everything in my life did too. I had been living in Los Angeles for 15 years and not long after that, I found myself without a home. So I did what felt equal parts reckless and necessary. I bought an old 1988 Dodge van for $3,000 and decided to figure it out as I went.

I had no idea what I was doing. No plan. No blueprint. Barely enough money to build a tiny space I could sleep in and the stubborn belief that I’d make it work.

Six months later, I moved into that van full time.

I traveled alone. I learned how to fix things badly and then better. I broke down in the middle of nowhere more than once. I saw parts of the country that made me feel small in the best way and parts that made me question what exactly I was doing. But I kept going.

Somewhere along the way, it stopped being about van life and started being about survival. About proving to myself I could keep going, even when nothing looked the way I thought it would.

Then life hit pause again.

I ended up in the ICU with a brain bleed. It was terrifying and humbling and one of those moments that rearranges something in you. Three weeks later, I got back on the road. Not because I was fearless. Mostly because I didn’t really know what else to do.

Somewhere in all of that, I adopted Charlie and Emilie. My dog and my cat. My tiny little family. They’ve been with me through all of it.

And for a while, I kept going. Kept moving. Kept building a life out of motion.

Until I couldn’t.

After a few years, I knew I wanted something different. Not bigger. Not flashier. Just steadier. Something with a little less motion and a little more peace. So I moved to Washington to be closer to my mom.

Then life did what life does and humbled me again.

I broke my back. Then my wrist. Then my wrist again, because apparently once was not enough.

What I thought would be a quick reset turned into a much longer season of healing. I moved into my mom’s attic. Physically, because I needed somewhere to recover. Emotionally, because I honestly didn’t have much of a choice.

That season slowed everything down.

I was healing from injuries, trying to recover financially, trying to figure out what came next, and quietly dealing with a depression that lasted longer than I expected. It was the kind that doesn’t always look dramatic from the outside. Just a slow, heavy feeling of being stuck. Of not recognizing your own life. Of wondering how many times a person can rebuild before it starts to wear on them.

Then my van got black mold.

Which felt, if I’m being honest, a little on the nose.

So now the thing that had carried me through years of starting over wasn’t safe to live in either.

And that was the thing no one really tells you about van life. For all the freedom it gave me, for all the beauty and independence and wildness of it, there is a difference between freedom and stability. I loved that life. I’m grateful for it. But there is something in a person that changes when they finally get to put their nervous system down somewhere.

That’s what led me here.

A few months after turning 43, I bought my first home.

Not a house. Not a farmhouse. Not some dreamy Pinterest cabin in the woods.

A 1982 RV with a little sunroom attached to it, tucked under the trees in Washington.

And I love it.

It’s imperfect and a little strange and probably not what most people picture when they think of buying your first home in your 40s. Which honestly makes it feel even more like mine.

After years of moving, rebuilding, surviving, and trying to find solid ground, this is the first place that feels like I get to exhale.

It’s not finished. It’s not perfect. But it’s mine.

And after everything, that means more to me than I can explain.

This is my version of home.
This is my version of stability.
This is my version of freedom.

And for the first time in a very long time, I’m not trying to escape my life.

I’m building one.

— Annie Wonderlich