STRESS

I feel I can handle stress and pressure well.  Though my wife tells me I should focus more on one thing, I tend to focus on several things all at once.  This takes time and energy but I enjoy it.  However, I assumed when school was out that I would have time to do more writing, reading, and prepping for our trip.  “Time to relax before the journey,” I mistakenly thought. 

Instead I picked up another job teaching online, enrolled the girls in lessons and camps, my sister-in-law has a wedding (congrats!) and I am trying to do as much with friends and family around Memphis as I can before I go.  Add this to selling our home and possessions, storing the rest, attempting to build a blog and Internet presence, travel plans, lesson plans for homeschool… And I’m certain I left something out.

The stress is here.  Not overwhelming at this point, but I can feel the tension in my body and I can see how I react quicker than normal.  The exercise, the meditation, they help, but they can only do so much.  With only two or three weeks before our adventure I am hoping life will slow down for a bit.  But whom am I kidding? 

Just a rant to let everyone know it’s not easy giving up one lifestyle for another, especially when the future is completely unknown and the roots at home are deep.  Be sure to do a lot of introspection and planning before making a big life decision life we did.  Not that we are having doubts, but the effort required is not a small one...

My Daughters

Sofiah is 8 and just finished the third grade.  She was with me for two years at Lausanne.  Though she is reserved and not the most outgoing child, she has made some good friends at school.  When we first started to talk about the move she became very upset.  She cried and assured us she would not move. 

“Mrs. Dunmyer said all the students who are moving could live with her.”  We said, “OK”, which surprised her, and she decided that ultimately she wanted to be with mom and dad wherever we go.  We build it up as ‘family time’.  Still, she is hesitant.                                                                                               
Kaia is 6 and just finished first grade.  She’s spunky and a social butterfly.  She seems OK with leaving and often asks a lot of questions about the places we plan to go.  “Will we get a lot of snow?”  What animals will we see?  Will we be able to do our schoolwork by a pool?”

But how will they react when we actually leave our home, the house where they have lived for their entire lives?  The broken routine?  The lack of family and friends within driving distance?  Will they resent my decision when they grow older?  Again, time will tell. 

STUFF

It all began when my wife and I decided to set monthly goals each year, one of which was to get rid of at least one item every day of the month.  The reason? 

I have too much shit.  Don’t we all?  I mean, I’m not a hoarder or anything, and I am organized enough that some people might think I have a slight case of OCD.  I collect comics, coins, books, steins, pint glasses, vinyl records and more.  Besides our own furniture I have four generations of stuff from my family; my grandfather’s WWII medals, my grandmother’s silverware and china, all the family pics; you get my point.  The list goes on and on...

Most of the STUFF sits around to collect dust or is stored away in drawers and boxes.  Very little of it is utilized in any meaningful way.  So when I started to get rid of a lot of things a weight felt lifted. 

Moving sales, Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist, EBay, Goodwill; there is no shortage of places to sell or give away your possessions.  Looking back, I cannot think of one item that I regret giving away or selling.  In fact, I continue to get rid of more and more, especially since we will be traveling with no permanent home. 

Yes, many of my possessions hold sentimental value; a book from my mother, my dad’s old Yankee’s hat, my first report card, a card made by my daughter. But how many of those things do I really need?  The time I have spent throughout my life rummaging through generations of items that were not even mine!  How many minutes or hours, even days have accumulated, time which I could have spent pursuing other interests? 

I dare not do the same to my children.  Sure, I will keep a few things of deep sentimental value and for items that are useful, but I cannot even begin to express how liberating this ‘purge’ has been for the mind and soul. Even deleting the endless emails that I have stored away in folders and subfolders has been cathartic!  My digital footprint may be larger than my actual footprint.  Some of the emails and documents have not been viewed in years!

George Carlin nailed it perfectly:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dn1u6tzwRxA

HOUSING

Probably the scariest part of planning is the uncertainty of where we will live.  Until a few weeks or so before we leave we have no idea where our location will be, much less our residence.  The idea of living in a cramped RV for a year or more just does not sound like my idea of fun.  We all need our space, especially my two daughters who seem to fight more and more each day.  Nor do we want to live in a pay by the week hotel in some crappy part of the city, but we may well be, at least temporarily. 

Travel-nursing companies provide housing stipends but when we spent the summer in Asheville a few years ago, we learned that it’s not so easy to find a home on Airbnb or Craigslist without putting in a lot of time and effort.  Niki and I were stressing big time.  Only two weeks before we left we were lucky and found a kindred teaching soul who let us rent her furnished second home.  Even then, until we arrived, we weren’t sure what we were getting would be habitable for two months.

Luckily, the home was nearly perfect; location, size and all.  All we can do at the present moment is spend time searching and asking questions.  I will let you know how the process goes, but it’s scary not knowing where exactly you will live. 

JOBS

Niki, my wife, is a registered nurse.  When we met she was in nursing school and worked at a casino in Tunica, Mississippi, almost full-time to pay tuition.  I like to think I played a part in helping her get through school because she had some tough times along the way.  In truth, her persistence pushed her through.  She has drive and passion.  She is a natural caregiver and very gentle.  Nursing is her calling, what she was meant to do in this world, and she does it amazingly well.

After over 15 years she is still a nurse, well respected and hard working.  Whether her goal is to run a marathon or to coordinate a Girl Scout event, she gets the job done.  So how am I lucky enough to have a wife with the same passion for traveling, so much so that she gives up her seniority at work and comfort at home to become a travel nurse over the next year while we ‘roadschool’ the girls and see what the world has to offer?  I count my blessings every day.                      

And then there is my job.  I work at Lausanne Collegiate School, arguably the best school in Memphis, possibly in the South.  For almost ten years I have taught there and in this time they have allowed me to travel all over the world with students and for professional development.  I have grown professionally and academically.  My two daughters, Sofiah and Kaia, come to school with me every day.  They love the school.  They have made friends and are flourishing there.

So you might see how we had a difficult time making a decision about leaving.  Some might say we are crazy to give everything up, but mostly all we have heard are positive comments, at least on the surface.  In truth, we don’t have any idea if we are making the right choice.  It is not as if we have a crystal ball to see the future, not as if we have a stash of cash or an unlimited savings account.  Our sense of adventure pulls us.  The time is ripe…

THE QUESTION

“Where are you all going?” everyone asks us.     

“West,” we tell them.  The truth is we have no destination, no set course.  We don’t feel the need to create a bucketlist of things we have to pursue like to pass through all 50 states or every national park.  There are specific places we want to visit, but our main goal is to be outside where the landscapes overpower the senses.  More importantly, the time we will have together as family will be priceless.                                                                                 

There will be tough days ahead.  I have two young daughters with attitudes.  They are used to comfort and to getting their way most of the time.  Which is another reason I want to travel, to toughen them up a bit, perhaps to enlighten them.  When those tough times arrive, I will write without glossing over the truth.                                                                                          

Most importantly, my wife and I have a strong, solid relationship.  I feel this is an absolute necessity for an adventure like ours.  When those obstacles hit us, we will be able to tackle them together.  Still, I refuse to go as far as purchasing an RV where we would be cramped in a small space for a year or more.  We will rent homes or apartments.  With luck, we won’t end up in a pay by the week hotel room in a shady part of whatever town where we stay.  Then again, if it has a decent pool…

THE DECISION

“Make the decision by New Year’s Day 2017,” we told ourselves.  How long had we pondered and made excuses? Then life happened – children, the routine, the extracurriculars, the mortgage, the car note, the career, the pets.  For so long we have wanted to leave the South, not to escape, but because the mountains, the rivers, the oceans and waterfalls, all the natural beauty of the world called us.

Before children our travels began to get longer.  We visited places that are more exotic.  Even when the girls came along we traveled as much as our income and vacation time would allow.  We skipped house repairs and short weekend trips in favor of month long vacations to destinations like Dominica and Spain.  If Europeans get at least a month of vacation every year why can’t we?

In our life travel has been a priority.  There is no better education.  So many beautiful places exist in this world and we have so little time to see them.  For this reason we made the decision to leave our comfort zone.  Yet the choice goes much deeper.  We are also choosing to leave behind family and friends, well-paying jobs, a home where we have established roots, and a basic everyday routine where we feel safe and secure.

Both scary and exciting, I must admit.  The first and toughest step was to make the decision, at least so far.  So this summer, most likely in July, we are leaving the South to travel for the next year or more with no set destination except West.  No place to call home except the road. 

Now time for the planning…