A few years back, I looked into replacing my house's foundation. From my understanding of the history of my house, the foundation was repaired at some point in the 1980s. Otherwise, it's mostly in its original form—which is very, very old. I knew from the time I bought my house that the foundation would need to be addressed at some point, and I was motivated to do it sooner rather than later.

I spoke to some different contractors and they each laid out the most worthwhile options: lifting up the house and repairing or replacing the foundation in its same spot or pouring a new foundation next to it and sliding the house over. One contractor suggested these options, but then paused a moment before asking me, "Why don't you just build a new house?" I was surprised by this suggestion; I hadn't even considered just starting from scratch. I replied with the obvious: "I don't think I can afford to do that." Truth be told, I wasn't sure how much something like that would cost in comparison to fixing or replacing the foundation, but I just assumed it would cost more. At the time I was looking into this, the COVID-19 pandemic was lurking on the horizon, and nobody had any idea just how drastically life-as-we-knew-it would change in the coming months.

I ultimately decided to shelve the house foundation project in light of the uncertainty the pandemic brought, but I still think about it from time to time and hear that contractor's question in my head: "Why don't you just build a new house?" For my own personal preference, the size of my house, and the state of the foundation, it is still a better option to fix what is already here when the time is right. I have dreams of one day building a new house on the property and renting out my current home, but that would still require me to put some time, effort, money, and love into it. In the meantime, the house isn't going anywhere and thankfully I have plenty of time to decide when and how I'd like to proceed.

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Paige O. Roberts has a degree in Creative Writing from Southern New Hampshire University. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Henniker Review, Sidereal Magazine, Rejection Letters, and Cypress. She has been nominated for a Best of the Net and Pushcart Prize. She lives in northern New Hampshire where she owns and operates a pet boutique called Tailswag.