As my van life journey continues, there are a few words I would use to describe my life over the last few months. Transitions, resetting, manifesting, changes.
Things have been chaotic, messy, and unsettling. I’ve truly been running around telling people “I’m fine!” like Ross in that episode of friends where his voice gets higher and higher every time he says those words. While I’ve wanted to talk about what is going on, I genuinely haven’t known how to because I’m still coming to terms with everything myself. But here it is.
After careful consideration, Evan and I have decided to pursue different paths of life.
If you read through my last post, “the Summer of Transitions“, you know that we decided to head to Portland, Oregon for the summer so Evan could work a seasonal job. Prior to our return my remote work really started to pick up, allowing the idea of long-term vanlife to really take flight. We had full intentions of moving to Central Oregon, where we could both work and save up some money. Something we both learned to do in this van is live in the moment and to stop planning so much. So when people asked us what our plans were for after summer, we both would just shrug. We’d figure it out later!
We never made the announcement, but our van was actually on Craigslist for quite some time. In preparation for the move, we cleared out the van completely. The last thing I did was take down the patches and the polaroids we had collected along the road. Truthfully, I drank a bottle of wine by myself and cried heavily while I removed the patches, one by one. When I was finished, I sat on the floor and let myself just sit in that hurt. I wanted to mourn that loss properly – not just the loss of my home, but the loss of my freedom, ability to travel, and all the wonderfulness that living out a van had brought me.
The next few days were filled with what I can only describe as sheer panic.
I was living out of a duffel bag and a backpack and all of my other belongings were in boxes. Honestly, I still hadn’t done laundry since getting home from the road. Most of the clothes even still smelled like campfire. If you asked the people around me, they would probably tell you that I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off – back to the Ross scene mentioned above. I was sleeping on friends couches, overbooking my schedule, and not really handling anything. I think I subconsciously knew that I wasn’t ready to settle down somewhere and that clearly showed in my actions and procrastination in moving forward.
We both are heavy dreamers and believe that life is too short to do anything but what makes us wholeheartedly happy.
To put it simply, when Evan and I really dove deep into our priorities and what we wanted, things simply didn’t align anymore. I truly feel like I am just getting started in this endeavor, whereas Evan feels like he got what he wanted out of it and is ready to move on with his life. Additionally, my work with Go-Van, freelance writing, and content creation is all built around life on the road. A large majority of my employment truly relies on being involved in the van world and traveling. I knew that even if we sold this van, I’d be back on the road in some way, shape, or form. It was only a matter of time.
After we started to come to terms with everything, the idea of me solely buying the van was planted. With the original plan of moving to Central Oregon, it didn’t make sense to keep the van. However, if I was going to consider buying and converting another one anyways, why not just keep my wonderful home that I was already so attached to?
So, surprise: I bought the van.
We are about 75% of the way through the process of me becoming the sole owner of the Sprinter van. The current loan has been paid off and paperwork is en route as my van life journey continues! While hitting the road solo does, at times, make me so nervous that I want to throw up, I am extremely excited about the blank slate I have sitting in front of me. The last year of life on the road provided such opportunity to get to know myself and to grow in ways that were really quite necessary. The idea of having that same opportunity again soon makes me grin like a little kid.
While this sounds like a big move, I really am just moving my boxes right back into the very same van that I packed them out of. The goal is to be back on the road within a month. As my van life journey continues, I am eager to fall and fail, then pick myself back up again. I can’t wait for the days where everything goes right and the days where everything goes wrong. But most importantly, I look forward to healing and welcoming personal growth with open arms.
