Ranch Kid Castaway

In the past, when I was asked about my background and where I’m from, I always led with

“I grew up on the ranch my great-grandfather homesteaded.”

I used to lean into that fact and the assumptions that went with it– that I had some extra grit, a good work ethic, and enjoyed living in remote places.

I began introductions this way my whole life until something did not feel right. A weird feeling I couldn’t shake started to creep in, something I couldn’t put my finger on and didn’t really want to look into. That kind of feeling wasn’t supposed to be there. The ranch, its critters, family legacy, and badland features were historically the center point of my happiness, identity, and home. It was a dissonance that I could not make sense of, and it frankly scared me to pieces. If that inkling were to lead me to understand or uncover inconvenient truths that -god forbid- lead me away from The Family place, I’d have to rebuild how I make income, where my home is, what my identity is, what my life revolves around. 

Some part of that weird feeling came from slowly realizing that working full-time on The Family place post-college was not actually going to earn me any chops the way it would if I were not a woman. Every passing branding, shipping day, and nut feed, I felt more pity than respect for the work I was doing. Through the jokes from neighbors and family about boyfriends and babies, I sensed a genuine concern for my dry relational forecast and aversion to the idea of starting my own family. I'm sure their concern was genuine, and I can't blame them; 25 is to a rural area what 35 is to anywhere with a dating pool. 

The rest of that inkling came from elsewhere, things that are hard to write about and even tougher to decide to take seriously. But, eventually, I did take them seriously enough to look deeper and arrive somewhere new, somewhere I never thought I’d be. In a culture that is constantly lamenting the generation that doesn’t want to come back, I’m finding it hard to convince myself anyone would want to read about someone’s experience learning how to create distance from, or even maybe leaving, The Family place. 

But, I’m writing this in the off chance there is someone out there in the thick of extricating themselves from The Family place or maybe going through the experience of having an inkling that something is off– an inkling you’re afraid to explore because part of you knows facing it could shake up everything you hold dear. Or maybe this will help someone who is coming to terms with the reality that staying means, for their own well-being, things will need to look different. 

As I doubt the value of sharing this, I remember the handful of people that listened to my reality and believed it and said,

“I was there once, too” and “count yourself lucky you’re arriving at these tough conclusions now and not later.”

These mentors of necessary endings helped me differentiate myself from the familial current of legacy and other fantasies that were not going to serve me well in the long run. I was lucky enough to receive a few gems of wisdom that, while I didn't take them seriously then, crystallized over time and helped me when I needed something to hold on to on this journey away from home.

Coming to the understanding that I need to distance myself, if not remove myself completely, from the family system and relative security of The Family place has been like what I imagine it might be like to be on a ship in the middle of the Atlantic watching the captain begin to unravel. You want to believe you have nothing to worry about, that the captain will snap back into the stoic, dependable figure a captain is supposed to embody. But, once you’ve seen the faltering and the unnerving direction the captain is headed, you can’t unsee it. For me, at least, I stayed for longer than I should have because of a fantasy that I could change it, help steer, and hold a place for myself. But in my case, this was only an unhelpful fantasy. 

 The first gem, one I’ve been given more recently, is the concept that there is a difference between true, earned guilt and self-attacking guilt. Although these two types of guilt feel the same, there is a handy way to differentiate the two. Self-attacking guilt is incredibly unhelpful and will keep you in a situation that you do not need to be glued to. It’ll keep you from being a free, autonomous human with your own identity. If there is something you need to apologize for, then you’ve actually done something wrong, and it is guilt you have earned. But if you don’t actually have anything to apologize for, but you’re feeling guilty, you’re stuck in a loop keeping you in an unhelpful orbit you don’t need to be in. Maybe for many this is obvious, but for me, for a long time, this couldn’t be less so, and understanding this concept was a tremendous help. 

The second gem came from the infamous Ranching For Profit School. I was lucky enough to attend a school with David Pratt, the former RFP owner, as the teacher. He outlined over and over again to us that week that family ranches are often so busy pressuring their kids to maintain what has been built that they forget every ranch has two legacies. The first was the homesteader, the entrepreneur that wanted to build something for themselves. The second legacy being the one who maintained and added to what grandpa built. It's easy to forget the former is an option and latch onto the latter of the two legacies, tangling one's whole identity, financial security, home, and hobbies around it, even if there may be better options for you as an individual. In family ranching, there is a certain shame and fear around being the kid that didn’t come home and maintain the legacy. But there is no shame in deciding to be an entrepreneur, a builder of your own thing because, after all, that is what great grandpap did. This, for me, was an incredibly freeing concept to hold on to. 

The third and final gem came from a ranch manager in Montana who shared that it’s possible for a family deal to be awesome and cool and look like the dream but also cost too much. After a summer of working on the family ranch a few years post graduating college, the inkling I’d been having that I needed some distance was getting strong enough to motivate me to apply for jobs. The job search was, as many can relate to, demoralizing. Looking back, I’m sure I sent out a lot of resumes with the wrong formatting and unnecessary bullet points detailing my hodgepodge of calving jobs and day work that didn't amount to anything remotely professional looking. 

A ranch manager in Montana bit and offered a short-term gig, which wasn’t quite what I was after, but I’d heard he was someone you could learn a lot from. He was, indeed, a wealth of knowledge. After sharing my story and even getting into the unpleasant nitty gritty, I learned that he also came from a family ranch and knew my weird dissonant feeling well. He introduced me to this idea that it is possible that something, even if it’s inherited, can cost too much. The idea that your present and future well-being isn’t worth sacrificing to fulfill a fantasy. This message coming from most people would not have registered for me, and I certainly wouldn’t have applied it to my situation. I would have thought, well, they just don’t understand how awesome it is to live the dream. But this guy knew what I was saying. He’s not just some cowboy type, but someone who lives and breathes production agriculture and western culture. 

Before my exposure to a person like this, I thought any kind of distance from the family ranch system meant the end of my identity/recreation/home, that I’d let loose my grip on something that so many people dreamed of having access to. But here was someone who was the real deal; I mean the guy turned a sale barn mare into a finished spade bit horse and had left The Family place behind to save himself and his family from being sucked into cycles that he recognized would cost too much. 

I don’t know that I would have been able to see what I came from for what it is rather than the fantasy I wanted it to be without talking to someone who had the same dream, similar background, and chose to go off on his own because staying was simply not worth the emotional expense for him.

Now when I introduce myself to people, I don’t lead with talking about The Family place. It was really awkward at first, not wanting to bring up something I didn’t want to talk about. But then it got a little less uncomfortable once I began reorienting myself on my own and not letting the old family story fill in the blanks for me. I’ve connected with other young women who’ve gone out on their own and admit they also no longer lead with the family story anymore and also feel unsettled because they’re not currently spending their days fencing and riding and pulling calves. It can feel like you’re a castaway, drifting around without the anchor you used to have. But as the dust settles and I'm finding my own path, it’s getting easier to answer when people are curious about my interests and background. I say that I’m open to new hobbies currently; I like training my stock dog on the town deer in the city park, I bought my own little home in a fun town, and I have a deep– maybe even spiritual– appreciation for a well-grown potato.