The decision was never made in the classic sense. We didn’t look each other square in the eye and say, definitively and confidently, ‘yes, let’s do this, let’s make it happen no matter what’. Instead, we seemed to dance around it and entertain it in our mind’s eye. We were too scared by the implications surrounding such a decision. It wasn’t a simple yes or no. It wasn’t a decision that only affected a small part of our lives. Things couldn’t carry on as before after a decision like this was made. And while I like change I also desperately try to hold on to the past. As if doing so will give me a foothold, an oh-shit bar to grasp while the tides of change swirl around my feet, eroding the stable base beneath me.
I recognize that my unwillingness to let the ‘things that come after’ settle out as they may has kept me from continually innovating and improving upon my life. I am uncomfortable with not knowing every outcome and not being able to foresee what might happen later. I don’t just dive right in. There must be a plan and a good one and every possible mishap that might pop up along the way must be accounted for.
The idea of changing everything and never in a thousand years being able to account for all the myriad ways in which that change could affect us or how all the dust would settle after the fact was highly unsettling. And…highly exciting. Two sides of the same coin. The same face. My little Gemini. The side that was excited by all this was screaming out to the other side, saying things like, ‘dude, come on, stop being a bump on the damn log and do this. Do this!’ The other side, hearing the usual raucous banter, would say, ‘now, now, let’s not be rash here. This is a highly unusual idea. People don’t just do this. They don’t just up and change everything when everything is, for the most part, just fine. Settle down and let’s think this through.’ Being two sides of a coin, they could never see eye to eye and I, as usual, was left to try and sort out these vastly different approaches to the same dilemma.
So Wendy and I did not make the decision, per se. But we slowly started working toward making it happen. Step by step – some little: cleaning out that box of crap that had been in the closet for years and some big: selling our raft and trailer – we all of a sudden realized that we had actually made the decision and communicated our desires subconsciously with one another. The day of no return – buying our new car that would allow us to tow a big travel trailer – gave us a shock. I think it was then we realized (Holy Fuck!) that this idea had snowballed of its own accord and it had us caught up in the reverie whether we were fully on board or not.
Once that realization came to pass the questions started flooding in: What do we bring? How do we travel? 5th wheel? Travel Trailer? Should we have just kept the van and stayed at VRBO’s? Homeschool? Roadschool? Worldschool? Travel the USA? Go abroad? How do we tell everyone about this? When do we sell the house? Do we have to sell all our stuff, too? Do we store stuff? When do we buy the camper? Before we sell the house? What if we don’t sell the house and have already bought the car and camper? What do we want to keep for after? Will we want any of that stuff after living without it for a year? How do we get mail, prescriptions? What about insurance on a camper if it’s your full time residence? Health insurance with no jobs? Can we afford it? How much freakin’ gas will we use? Can I drive a 30 foot trailer safely? How do I carry 5 bikes and all our gear? Will I be able to book campsites far enough ahead of time? Where to go? When to go there? Will the girls really enjoy it? Will they hate us? Will they become isolated and insular or will they thrive and prosper? Will we all get sick of each other and just, eventually, want to go home? Home to where? Where will we settle after this? Will the housing market come down enough? Will we want to settle after this?
As you can see, sleep became as elusive as a will o’ the wisp in the desert in daylight. Afternoon cups of coffee increased. Irritability skyrocketed. We settled into an endless series of worries, wonderings and work. We no longer lived in the present. We were in a constant state of what-ifs. And that is not a good way to live. Days, weeks pass in a blur and the only thing you accomplish is another booking for a campground you have no idea if you will reach on that date, or at all, and a heaping dumpster full of stuff you used to think you needed.
We attempted to sort our belongings and it became clear that we had inundated our lives with stuff. As we dug in, the stuff came spilling out. Like one of those closets in a kids book that, when the mom asks if the room has been cleaned, explodes into the room upon being opened. I just couldn’t believe how much of it there was. And as the garage sale pile increased I began to think about stuff and its hold on us. Here’s a summation of my monkey mind as I lay sleepless at night.
We surround ourselves with our belongings because we see them as connections to things that have happened to us. A raggedy old pair of Carhartts reminds us of being in the carpentry trade, an old faded photograph has memories of former – and usually, glorious – times, an african mask reminds us of our worldly selves. Even odors of certain things (my pop-up, for example) can be extremely evocative. We really believe that these artifacts tie us to our sense of place in the world. But the truth is, the only things connected to our stuff are anchors. These anchors hold us in the past and keep us from moving forward and living in the present. It is hard to sever these anchors, even as we might acknowledge that they weigh us down. But we feel that they also keep us grounded. Without them, we feel adrift, untethered, unmoored. Floating and hesitant toward an unknown shore.
However, it is precisely the unknown that excites us. We read countless volumes (well, I do) of explorers and wish that we could live in the engaging and ever-present world that they did. We sit on our couches and devour epic tales of survival (Unbroken) and adventure (Uncharted) and wish we could be there. Yet, we continue to tether ourselves to these anchors and work hesitantly and reluctantly to disconnect ourselves from them.
There is, for me, an undeniable lightening of the spirit when you begin to shed unneeded stuff.
I really believe that my decision to move on this monumental idea (it wasn’t mine!) was because I began to feel overwhelmingly stuck in place, like in a rut or a never ending infinite loop. My love of bikepacking and backpacking also gave me an appreciation for going light and only traveling with what you need. The accumulated bric-a-brac of my life had begun to weigh on me and drag me down.
Sure, yeah, I’ll blame it on my stuff.
