Today marks 1 month since we left the only town we’ve ever lived in as adults, and joined the fulltime rv lifestyle . Having never even owned an rv before, jumping into a 40 foot 5th wheel and a diesel truck to haul it is a major learning curve.
Currently we are spending some time parked near Newport, Oregon, adventuring up and down the central coast. Being the fall/winter season, the pace of life here is slow – which offers a great chance to recover from the stress of the last several months years .
( I’ve been referring to it as our cocoon stage.) We are in a town where nobody knows us, or expects any particular thing from us. It’s a great time to explore not just the area, but ourselves as well. Some of the things I’ve been pondering:
– What were we doing before that wasn’t serving us?
– What did we let in our lives that didn’t actually align with our values?
– How did we end up in a life so overrun with debt and to-do lists that we lost our joy?
– How can we best help our differently wired kids thrive?
– What makes us feel inspired and fulfilled??
For our kids , this is a time to do some healing and reigniting of a love to learn. Our kids are amazing, and unique, and not one of them is neuro-typical. My husband is also on the spectrum, and on hard days I tease him it’s his fault ;). Autism, SPD, dyslexia, anxiety, speech and learning delays, the list is near endless of things we were trying to “fix” back home . Most of the school year was spent trying to fit in a system that wasn’t built for them, and the summers dealing with the stress and squeezing in therapies . Some of them had a great time at school ; but some of them, especially our 9 year old, have legitimate trauma. Shoot, I have some serious anxiety from their number showing up on my phone so often, not to mention the constant battle to have the school do what was in my kid’s IEPs.
We’d had a life that looked it was “supposed to”, according to our parents generation – and it was not what we’d been promised . We had the 2400+ square foot house – and not enough money or time to enjoy it. We had 4 kids in public school – and none of them were getting what they needed to feel supported and successful. We had 2 cars that always needed upkeep or maintenance or tires or ……. you get the point.
The list of To-Do’s was endless, the money needed to maintain ( or improve ) relentless, and there was never enough time for the things we really wanted in life. Travel was a someday hope, vacations were a maybe-next-year, retirement and savings a far off goal.
It was not the life we’d wanted – so we called it quits.
We let it all go and are hundreds of thousand dollars less in debt.
We are traveling together and seeing new things now.
We are figuring out how to support the kids, and help them believe once more in themselves.
And we are able to take the time to do things we love – like write and share the journey with you. 😉
It’s only the beginning, and it may be a slow start, but for us – it’s just right.
I hope you are making your life what you love, and letting go of the shoulds and normals too!
With Love,
Sarah
Wellness Crusader 