I Sold My House, Bought a School Bus—and Learned How to Receive
Depuis
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Holly Christina Cohen had built the things that were supposed to represent stability: a career, a home, a mortgage, a life she had worked for.
Then grief kept asking her a different question: Are you actually living the life you want?
In her thirties, Holly experienced the deaths of people close to her, including a longtime partner who died from an accidental gunshot and another person she loved who later died from brain cancer. As more loss accumulated and COVID disrupted the career she had known, the question became harder to ignore.
Eventually, Holly sold her house, left the town she had lived in for fifteen years, bought a school bus, built it out, and spent a year on the road.
She talks about solitude in the mountains, months near Asheville and Pisgah Forest, fear, freedom, money, simplicity, and what it meant to begin again.
But one of the most revealing parts of Holly’s story comes afterward.
For someone who learned early to be highly independent, receiving care could feel like something she would eventually have to repay. Holly shares what happened when friends gave generously to her and she realized how difficult it was simply to let herself receive.
That practice is still unfolding.
She calls the chapter ahead divine integration: less about becoming someone new and more about inhabiting what she has already learned.
Thank you, Holly Christina Cohen for sharing your story in your own words.
Subscribe to Depuis for one woman. One story. Every Wednesday.
ABOUT DEPUIS
Depuis is a global women’s storytelling movement and living archive of honest, first-person stories. Women across generations and cultures share their lives in their own words and on their own terms, without being judged or turned into spectacle. By honoring each story as it is, Depuis helps more women feel seen, heard, understood, and less alone.
Safe to share. Sacred to tell.
CONNECT
Holly Christina Cohen IG: @Hollyccohen
Depuis on Instagram: Instagram: voicesofdepuis
Depuis on TikTok: TikTok: voices.of.depuis
Depuis website: https://depuis.org
CHAPTERS
00:00 — Asking what she was doing with her life
01:05 — Responsibility from an early age
03:30 — Hyper-independence and receiving
03:57 — Grief that turned her inside out
06:32 — Experiencing a different kind of loss
07:46 — COVID and a career reckoning
09:20 — Selling her house and starting over
11:22 — Living close to the earth
13:00 — Asheville and life on the road
16:01 — Why she would take the leap again
17:16 — Coming home with almost nothing
17:52 — The continuing practice of receiving
18:25 — A birthday trip that exposed the pattern
22:08 — What self-love means to Holly
23:12 — Fear, choice and taking the leap
24:06 — Play and presence
24:33 — Divine integration
CONTENT NOTE
This conversation includes discussion of grief and the deaths of loved ones, including an accidental firearm death and death from cancer.
#Depuis #LearningToReceive #LifeTransitions
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I Sold My House, Bought a School Bus—and Learned How to Receive
Depuis
42 views
Holly Christina Cohen had built the things that were supposed to represent stability: a career, a home, a mortgage, a life she had worked for.
Then grief kept asking her a different question: Are you actually living the life you want?
In her thirties, Holly experienced the deaths of people close to her, including a longtime partner who died from an accidental gunshot and another person she loved who later died from brain cancer. As more loss accumulated and COVID disrupted the career she had known, the question became harder to ignore.
Eventually, Holly sold her house, left the town she had lived in for fifteen years, bought a school bus, built it out, and spent a year on the road.
She talks about solitude in the mountains, months near Asheville and Pisgah Forest, fear, freedom, money, simplicity, and what it meant to begin again.
But one of the most revealing parts of Holly’s story comes afterward.
For someone who learned early to be highly independent, receiving care could feel like something she would eventually have to repay. Holly shares what happened when friends gave generously to her and she realized how difficult it was simply to let herself receive.
That practice is still unfolding.
She calls the chapter ahead divine integration: less about becoming someone new and more about inhabiting what she has already learned.
Thank you, Holly Christina Cohen for sharing your story in your own words.
Subscribe to Depuis for one woman. One story. Every Wednesday.
ABOUT DEPUIS
Depuis is a global women’s storytelling movement and living archive of honest, first-person stories. Women across generations and cultures share their lives in their own words and on their own terms, without being judged or turned into spectacle. By honoring each story as it is, Depuis helps more women feel seen, heard, understood, and less alone.
Safe to share. Sacred to tell.
CONNECT
Holly Christina Cohen IG: @Hollyccohen
Depuis on Instagram: Instagram: voicesofdepuis
Depuis on TikTok: TikTok: voices.of.depuis
Depuis website: https://depuis.org
CHAPTERS
00:00 — Asking what she was doing with her life
01:05 — Responsibility from an early age
03:30 — Hyper-independence and receiving
03:57 — Grief that turned her inside out
06:32 — Experiencing a different kind of loss
07:46 — COVID and a career reckoning
09:20 — Selling her house and starting over
11:22 — Living close to the earth
13:00 — Asheville and life on the road
16:01 — Why she would take the leap again
17:16 — Coming home with almost nothing
17:52 — The continuing practice of receiving
18:25 — A birthday trip that exposed the pattern
22:08 — What self-love means to Holly
23:12 — Fear, choice and taking the leap
24:06 — Play and presence
24:33 — Divine integration
CONTENT NOTE
This conversation includes discussion of grief and the deaths of loved ones, including an accidental firearm death and death from cancer.
#Depuis #LearningToReceive #LifeTransitions