I have always been the type to push my boundaries and limits. However, I walk up to that boundary line shaking in fear; sometimes I spend days, months, or years standing at that boundary, but then something happens.
I cross it.
This current boundary I have crossed has taken me years to tiptoe across.
When my parents both passed away in 2014, I saw time through a new lens: there wasn’t enough of it. It couldn’t be dismissed or squandered. I spent time traveling and experiencing life even more than I had been. I also decided I wanted to travel across the country in a camper.
Not that I forgot the lessons I learned from my parents’ deaths, but I fell back into convention. It always seems so easy to do: to fall back in line with the status quo.
In 2018, I even quit the job I was working, which was with the TRiO program at a local high school. I told my boss I was leaving my job because I was buying a camper, and I was going to travel the states.
While I had every intention to back that talk up with action, I didn’t. I was scared. I thought I was ready, but I wasn’t. So instead, I took time off work to travel some more, and I stayed in my comfort zone.
After a few months of traveling, I started looking for a new job. I became a high school English teacher. While I loved the community, I loved the small school, and I loved the kids, it just wasn’t right. But I don’t think anything was going to be right because I wasn’t doing what I was supposed to. I started getting this nagging feeling. I had to travel the states in camper. I needed to experience the open road and simplicity.
This time when I turned my notice in at my job, I was ready to take my dreams seriously, and I did.
I was excited but scared shitless. In fact, I am two weeks in on the road, and I am still excited and scared shitless.
I have gotten rid of my house I was renting, and I have gotten rid of 90% of the things I own. I have no plan except for this moment. I have no idea what I will do, where I will live or where I will be in one year. For now, I am blindly following my path.
I still doubt myself; I still doubt my decision. Then I feel this intense freedom; I feel the joy that boils up when I am in a new place.
I am on the road with my Subaru, my kayak, my travel trailer and my dog. (This might be a progressive country song in the making). In two weeks, I have experienced so many emotions. I have had these beautiful experiences. I have felt alone. I have felt like the whole world is mine, and we keep sharing secrets. I have felt frustration; I felt elation. I have thought, “What the hell am I doing?” Followed by, “This is exactly what I should be doing!” Things are simple, but nothing is easy.
In two weeks, I lost the handle that lowers my stabilizers on my trailer. I lost the vent cover to the back of my refrigerator somewhere between Nebraska and Kansas. I have had to beg and plead with RV repair shops to fix my 7-prong plug on my trailer. I broke the breakaway cable on my trailer. I drove through 65 mph winds as my car and trailer wiggled like a squirmy puppy. I have had to wash my clothes at laundromats. If I get to take a shower, I have to wait 30 minutes for the water to heat up. I live in a 17 foot space. I experienced a 28 degree night in the middle of a Wal-Mart parking lot. I carry all the burdens of decision making and handling problems when they arise alone.
It sounds like I might be whining or complaining, but then there is the other side of things. In two weeks, I have experienced freedom and beauty; I have experienced the beauty in freedom. My dog and I sat alone atop sand dunes in Idaho as the sun tucked behind the horizon as the cooling sand soothed our skin. Coyotes sang and their voices echoed through the silence. I ran on riverside trails that meandered through the Utah wilderness with not one human in sight. Every morning in Utah I saw the same deer family of four. I kayaked through the Flaming Gorge as the sun rose high above the red rocks; the rocks jagged edges highlighted by the rays of light. I drove on miles and miles of gravel roads in Kansas while pale blue skies kissed the golden crops. I ran a half-marathon in Marysville, Kansas which was my 30th half-marathon, and my 21st state I have ran a race in.
I still have no idea what I am doing, but I feel myself learning; I feel myself expanding. The open road only accepts patience and appreciation. I have to be willing to roll with whatever I am presented with each day. Being on the road forces me to be present in every moment.
Each morning my eyes open to whatever the day may bring, and no day is the same.
Amor Fati 