It’s been just over two months since we started traveling. Here are three of the more major things that I miss and don't miss about my old conventional, home owning, 9-5 legal secretary mindset.
Things I Don't Miss
- Home Ownership. I bought my home in 2006. We lived in our house for 13 years and from day one, literally the day we got the keys, we started renovating and making changes. Initially the changes were cosmetic so we could move in and not stare at children's crayon drawings on the blood red dining room walls or look at blue tile in the shower stall that had been partially re-grouted with brown grout to (not) match the rest of the white grout. We had about a month before our lease ended in our apartment and spent the time sanding and refinishing the floors, painting the entire house, pulling down the shower tiles and installing a cheap but 100% nicer than what we had plastic shower surround system, and replacing the kitchen cabinets with Lowes' ready made cabinets, flooring and countertops. Over the next 13 years, we took on project after project, most of which were major endeavors that involved gutting full rooms and putting them back together, tearing down a gigantic brick hearth where a wood burning stove sat to uncover the original coal fireplace and completely reconfiguring and renovating our kitchen, adding a half bath and renovating our master bath - the bathroom happening the last 2 weeks before the house went on the market. There were many other projects over the years, and don't get me started on the shed remodel and the landscaping work. While the work was rewarding, it was constant and never ending and if we still lived there, I have no doubt it would be continuing to this day. The house was beautiful when we sold it and despite leaving behind a bomb ass kitchen (which had been renovated only a year earlier) and new master bath that I never even got a chance to soak in, I wanted out and I wanted to never look back. I was done with it and with the constant feeling that we need to keep improving it. I was done with the dark thoughts in the back of my head that involved possibly needing a new roof in the next few years or possibly needing to replace the main sewer line which was almost 80 years old. I was just done. I don't miss it one bit and I don't miss Richmond, Virginia either. Great city. Great breweries and restaurants. Great festivals. Great. I'm over it.
- My Job. I worked as a Legal Secretary in various law firms for the past 19 years. Prior to that I worked for GEICO insurance and prior to that, when I first started working at the age of 16 and through the first few years of college, I worked as a receptionist at JCPenney. I've always worked for big corporations and always had a desk job. Unfortunately, I've been told I'm a really great secretary. I say unfortunately because it's not very inspiring or necessarily aspirational. Working in the corporate world, however, offers certain things. There's stability there, benefits, vacation and sick plans and the general safety that goes along with that and the responsible, super pragmatic (boring) part of myself was ok with it and really didn’t seriously consider that there were any other options for making a living that would apply to me personally. I was super fortunate to consistently have really great bosses and co-workers. What I disliked was the work itself. At one time, I thought I wanted to be a lawyer and almost applied to law school, but Jay encouraged me to work in a firm first before making any major life changes and incurring massive school loan debt and I'm glad I took his advice. I won't get into the specifics about what sucks or doesn't suck about being a lawyer from my observations and from working with them all these years, but I will just say that most of the time, reading legal b.s. is just that - b.s. It doesn't grip my soul and it doesn't excite me and as much as I tried to read Virginia code books, I would get through a paragraph or two and be bored to tears and resume my internet surfing. Most of the day, I had to give myself pep talks to keep me going but generally I felt that my soul was diminishing everyday and that I was wasting my life and was going to die at my desk under a stack of documents and redwelds. It was a job of constantly moving paper from one area to another and documenting whatever you did to save your ass should things go south. What I did enjoy was making my kick ass attorneys' days a little easier and I appreciated being appreciated by them. I enjoyed helping my co-workers out with personal or professional gripes and generally enjoyed being some sort of an asset in the general sense to an organization. The specifics of the job, however, were mind numbing.
- Major Stressors. I've always been a bit of a stress ball and an anxious and more serious person, which is why (I believe) I suffer from chronic digestive distress and probably one of the contributors to being diagnosed with a mild case of Crohn's Disease in 2015 (not to mention having several genetic markers for it - this is a big topic that I might address in another post and I know I probably shouldn't make blanket statements about such a serious disease, but it's also my disease and it's a very individual disease). I knew my life needed to change in a big way. I needed to make a grand gesture and not merely implement small incremental changes that I could easily gloss over or forget to enact. I needed to let go of things from my past and things that were stressing me out and that included my house, my car, and most of my possessions. I needed to let it all go and start my life over as much as I could. I needed to shed physical items and mental hindrances (the mental part is something I've been working on for years). Of course stress still exists in my life as it's a natural part of any life, but my stresses have lessened and have changed into ones that don't have such a tight grip on my soul or my digestive tract.
Things I Miss.
- Showers. Shower time for me has always been a luxury. It’s like a spa moment every time I step into the shower stall. I never took showers or municipal water sources for granted and would often silently thank the universe that I had access to fresh running water to not just drink and wash dishes and laundry with, but especially to wash off any grit, grime, bad mood, or whatever from my body, hair and mind. After a sweaty run, a long bike ride, a day spent renovating your house, working in your yard, walking to the mailbox, waking up in the morning, whatever - nothing beats a hot shower, especially if you just opened a new bar of soap or have a new bottle of shampoo to use. We don't have a legit shower in the van and I miss it. We have implementing 3 basic methods for washing up. One is the wipes system using not baby wipes but the adult version of baby wipes. This is good for light clean ups where we haven’t been sweating profusely from a mountain bike ride or hike and just need a quick freshen up. The second method is the plastic bucket method where we fill a small sink sized Tupperware type container with water and soap and take sink baths with a washcloth. (This method was also used when our master bathroom was gutted and we didn’t have a shower at home and it’s quite effective and efficient.) The third method involves setting up a collapsible tall stand up tent out of the back of the van and hook up a shower hose to our 30 gallon water tank and take the closest thing to a real shower we have available. This is the most futzy method and most time consuming. Additionally, we can't just haul out the shower tent in a Walmart parking lot. This is generally reserved for post mountain bike rides where we are parked in the woods at a trailhead or on a forest service road of some sort. The last time we used the tent shower was when we stayed overnight at the Bonneville Salt Flats which was a totally cool place to sleep and tent shower.
- Regular Yoga Practice. Pre vanlife, I had a routine of waking up around 5:15 a.m. 4 days out of the workweek and either going for a half hour jog or a firing up Yoga with Adriene on YouTube and starting my morning with her soothing voice and calming practice. Sometimes I'd also throw in a pre-bedtime practice and usually do something on the weekend as well. I brought my yoga mat with me but it's difficult to practice while traveling. Many of the places we post up for the evening don't have cellular service, much less WiFi or we're spending the night in a parking lot somewhere. Jay was able to download a few videos for me so I have some on standby when I get the opportunity but it's much less than I would prefer. I have, however practiced yoga in some great places, with kick-ass backdrops like on the banks of the Mississippi River, at a park in downtown Squamish, BC, and on BLM land in Colorado and Wyoming. I'm looking forward to getting back to a regular practice next year.
- Cooking. I have always loved finding and cooking recipes. When I was diagnosed with Crohn's disease I really began searching for ways to improve my diet and work to reduce my symptoms. I had been following Meghan Telpner's website www.meghantelpner.com for a few years and finally enrolled in her Culinary Nutrition Expert Program last year in her Academy of Culinary Nutrition. www.culinarynutrition.com Meghan also has Crohn's disease and has been symptom free for I believe over a decade after implementing dietary changes to her life. She's a nutritionist, business owner, creator of an online nutrition school and overall powerhouse of an individual. I learned so much through her program and dedicated a good portion of my weekly routine to meal planning, prepping and eating delicious, healthy and healing whole food meals. Cooking in the van, however, is limited. Space is limited, energy sources are limited and there are constraints everywhere you look. This hasn't been an excuse to slack off with healthy eating but our meals are no longer elaborate affairs. We simply don't have the room to store many of the extras that I had incorporated into my diet when I had a standard kitchen. I do what I can, but I'm pretty bummed about not being in the kitchen.
There you have it. Some ups. Some downs. Nothing unsurmountable and nothing that's permanent one way or another. Before I know it, our travels will be over and I'll be back to cooking up a storm in the kitchen, practicing yoga whenever I want and washing my hair whenever I damn well please. Until then, I'm focusing on all the positives this interlude is providing me and the space and time to figure out a new lifestyle going forward that serves my soul in its highest form.
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