The last few weeks have been a blur and much harder than I had anticipated. I worked up to the Friday before we planned to leave which in retrospect, I would not recommend to anyone doing a trip like this. I have been struggling with major insomnia and anxiety. All of this change is a little bit overwhelming. In one month we have both quit our jobs, sold almost everything we own, had to say goodbye to all our friends and co-workers, and the hardest part, say goodbye to our beloved pets. I know that this trip is the right path for us to take, and I am absolutely sure that I will never regret it, but I wanted to be honest to people thinking about a life change like this about the realities of it. It is hard.
My father in law Bill put it beautifully, he said we spend out lives tying ourselves to our friends, houses, careers, possessions, and to move on we need to undo the knot that bounds us to each of those things one at a time. I think this is truly the first time in my entire life that every knot tying me to something will be unbound, and I think it will take me a few months to process the freedom that comes with that, but I am looking forward to seeing the person I become from this experience.
Looking back on the last few months of moving our lives into a small truck camper, I think one of the things for us that made it even more difficult is we made the decision not to put anything we owned into a storage unit which forced us to keep only the things we truly needed and put things that were irreplaceable at our parents houses. We had gathered a lifetime of stuff, most of it we never used, and I struggled with letting things go much more than Sam did. However, now that they are gone, I have no regrets, but I will not pretend there were not a few meltdowns along the way. One thing I have learned, I am really going to think twice about buying things in the future. I wasted a lot of money on things that I did not really value or use, I am grateful for this new perspective and being truly free of the stuff that weighs you down.
All the stuff that was left over our last day we gave away for free on Craig’s list, it was all gone in hours, happy it made it into people’s homes instead of landfills. This is all the stuff you usually pack in those last 5 boxes when you move that get put into the garage rafters.
During our final two weeks we had a few great going away parties, and the picture below is the one we had at our house where over 60 people ate, drank, toured the XP camper and melted in the 102 degree heat. It was a really fun day and I know we will really miss all our wonderful friends and co-workers.
My awesome team at our back yard BBQ who I have had the pleasure of working with for the last 4 years, they will be missed!
After our final weekend of packing the XP and cleaning our rental home, we finally hit the road, me in the Prius with my two cats, and Sam in the XP to go get a few things fixed before we hit the open road. My 14 hour drive to Salt Lake alone with the cats sucked, I got a ticket in Truckee for going 5 miles over the speed limit and the cats were really scared and meowed non stop. It was one of the longest days I can remember.
The only way to get Maya to stop freaking out was to let her sleep on my lap during the 14 hour drive from San Francisco to Salt Lake city, Utah.
However, all the hard things are done and now the real adventure can begin! Next week, once we are sure our cats are settled, we will be heading up to Jackson Hole, Wyoming to celebrate my 40th birthday.