thinking about choices: where do we go from here?

Once upon a time I had a dream that I would travel the country selling my wares at festivals, and when I did, it would be in a silver bullet trailer. Remember that, Sharon?

I honestly believed that that dream had died a long time ago. I haven't had the urge to travel since I started getting motion sick, and my family, they are the rocks that really just want to be in one place. I often say they are the trees (rooted deep in the earth, staying in one place) and I am the bird (fluttering around them, wanting to take them places and show them new things and never really wanting to be in one place too long). I get restless and I like to shake things up.

And I was ready to root down with them, I really was. I AM, actually. We bought this big beautiful house on this big beautiful property and we were working to make it a space we would love for years to come. But my health has not been improving since my concussion. And that puts my dear husband in the role of caregiver to me at times, and of course to our son, and having this big 'ol property on top of it with systems we aren't used to caring for and all the work they require....it hasn't been working for us the way we had hoped. We had to concede that we need something smaller and that requires significantly less maintenance.

And then there have been all the issues we have had with the neighbours. It's been a huge mess, and we don't quite understand it, and I really don't want to rehash it here, but let's just say we have been sufficiently traumatized by their incessant need to ignore all boundaries, and if it wasn't the property itself needing so much more than we are able to give it, it would most certainly be the neighbours driving us away from here. And because of the (actual) trauma of the situation, I am feeling a need to explore other options and just NOT own any property for awhile.

We aren't able to sell until July because of capital gains tax, but that gives us time to get all our ducks in a row and really figure out our gameplan. AGAIN. We are honestly SO tired of moving, you know? But this isn't working for us, and we are in over our heads, and that is just what is so. Living here has been stress after stress, and the beauty of the property is not outweighing the amount of stress it brings us. So....what about going in the opposite direction....now for something completely different?

What if we just explored our options for awhile. Literally? We have always wanted to visit my biodad, for example and haven't been able to afford it. Or my dear friend in Florida. Or our relatives in various parts of the country. How about Legoland, or the beautiful National Parks, or any of the events we miss that we used to attend, but we don't anymore because $ and we live too far away? Kiernen wants to go to NYC to Nintendo World. What if we actually could?

My health has been a big thing for us these past couple of years. since my concussion, I haven't been the same. I am 42 now. That's young in many ways but it's also close enough to retirement age that we have this awareness of how short life can be. and because of my health issues, we are also quite aware of how fallible we are. In my family there is a degenerative brain illness that is hereditary .My mother, my uncle, and my youngest brother have it. There's a 50/50 shot any of us in my family do. I haven't been tested for it, nor has my other brother - we don't want to know (yet). But it affects the cerebellum - that means motor coordination, speech, ability to walk, causes severe vertigo and issues with sight. It hits in the 50s. That's ten years from now. Just ten years.

So I might not have much longer of a time in which I can do those bucket list things....like travel in an RV across the country. And because of technology and seasonal work, there are actually a lot of different ways to make $ on the road. So why not? In my research (because I am me and once I am interested in a thing I like to spend hours and hours finding out as much as possible about it) I have discovered that there are SO SO many people who are full-time RVers. Couples, families, singles, all ages and backgrounds. There are tons of resources for doing this - so many I am overwhelmed by my options for research at present - and I will find my way through them so as to be as fully prepared as possible before (if?) we do this (also an incessant need of mine).

I even have friends who are doing it!

So this is the beginning. Who knows what might come of all of this, but right now I am in the "let's do this!" phase because that's how I roll. In this family, we throw our hat over the fence and then follow, and it works for us (mostly).