We’ve been living in the motorhome for a week when we got a warning letter from the campground because we have much stuff scattered around our RV. I know that warning letters are often a good thing; it shows you live on the edge of what people expect of you.
The letter is complaining about the things we left outside our rig. Some of our old stuff that we couldn’t get rid of yet, but it doesn’t fit inside. We’ve already sold or given away 90% of what we had, but we need to get rid of more stuff. Where’s Marie Kondo when you need her?
In Miami, we had a house with four bedrooms; we had a maid. My wife had a big walk-in closet, and I had another. Between the selling of the house and the day we had to move out, we ran a garage sale, sold a few things, and gave away the rest to the maid who had helped us at our house.
It is fall; the trees are shedding their leaves to prepare for a new season. We are doing the same. At the motorhome, each of us now has nowhere just a drawer, and we can only keep what fits inside it.
I’ve closed my business. To save money and allow us to stay longer on the road, I bought a used RV, and now the kids are having fun helping us with the painting and repair. You can see an Instagram short video here.
We now have a queen-size bed, the two oldest kids have a bunk bed each, and the three little ones share a bed that sits on top of the driver’s seat. Beyond that, we had a tiny bathroom with a low shower that I have to bend to fit, and a space with a sink, a fridge, and a stove. All this in 400 sq/ft. But it fits us well. And now I’m sure that would also fit Jack on that titanic board.
We only have two places to stay if we’re inside the rig. We’re either in our beds or in the living room; there’s no other place to be. But our day is mainly outside. Sitting on chairs we’ve set up around the fire, in hammocks, or cooking on a grill while the kids climb trees and run around.
There is tranquility in doing what everyone else does. Because if something goes wrong, you can always blame chance, not something you actively caused. I also think that if the children want to get into a good college and they fail, I was the one who took them out of school.
Sometimes those thoughts caused me to contemplate shortening the project. We could go from Florida to the west coast and be back in time to enroll the kids in school before September. And I had enough money to stay six months out of work. I mentioned this possibility to Beta, who reminded me that I was just afraid. She was right.
It’s our first week and Teo, our oldest son, broke his feet. We took him to the clinic, and it reminded us that we no longer have the comfort of living near a hospital and having friends and doctors from our city. I thought that now if they have an accident, we may not be close enough to a hospital, and it was our choice. These thoughts appear occasionally and don’t help me relax or sleep.
We often helped each other throughout this adventure by being like those tire-rippers placed on the road to keep drivers from backing up. Every time I mention I’m worried about money, she reminds me that, whatever happens, we could get a job in some new city, and we would never starve. When she worries about the kids not being in school and spending the day playing outside or on screens, I remind her that not only they are not learning about triangles and mitochondria, but they are also failing to learn about bullying, to have early access to drugs, blind competition and how not helping a friend in need during a test.
I’m outside the RV, and I see Teo climbing a tree with his foot bandaged; I think that a child will always be safer inside a classroom or sitting on a sofa, but that’s not what they were made for; they were made to climb trees learn from playing, run around and break stuff.
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Have a wonderful day,
