One of the more unexpected things that has happened to me during the last year and a half of full-time travel is simply the ability to create space and time for grief.
I’ve had many ah-ha moments during my full-time travel the past year and a half a few of them have been extremely eye-opening. Let’s take for example, the fact that I one hundred percent see how I was the problem with the obsession of keeping our home tidy.
Yep, it’s not my most shining moment that I’m proud of but something I think that is important to say since we have this public forum with people listening. I was definitely the problem, my obsession, my need, and my desire to fill my day with busy tasks to avoid grief. It became abundantly apparent once you took away the factor of a large home.
It’s extremely eye-opening and interesting now to have a conversation with friends or family and listen to all of their busy tasks, I suppose perception is reality and I was once caught in that cycle of “needing to do things!”
Full time travel has allowed me the opportunity to see what was sitting right in front of me, which was a beautiful marriage and children needing my attention far more than decorating, a home, preparing for a birthday party, or just being so hyper focused on the appearance of material things, a.k.a. keeping a home in order.
For a lack of better wording it’s simple, stripping ourselves of these material goods, and don’t read into that too much. We, of course, still have all the luxuries we once had in a home, except a bathtub!
However, taking away the exterior items, allowed me time and space to think, grieve the loss of my mother, and really come to terms with the fact that it was my own personal need to control and stay busy to avoid other things in my life that was making homeownership so miserable for me personally.
So, why do I share that with all of you- because when you’re in the middle of something, it’s very hard to see it. I’m not going to say I wish somebody would’ve told me to slow down because frankly that’s super annoying when someone does that.
But, what I would say is I would have loved if I had an ah-ha moment or read an article or saw something that made me realize that the most important things in life aren't things.
What’s amazingly ironic about that statement is we actually have a sign that we hung in our home that said just that and even though I looked at it daily, I was missing my own lecture.
So how do we slow down and enjoy? Perhaps it is not RV life or even part-time RV travel... I can admit that feels probably overwhelming for most.
But there are some smaller things you can do because as we continue on this full-time travel journey, there are days that I can feel myself getting obsessed or too focused on the small things.
Take the time, that would be my first advice. Take the time to enjoy. Let the dishes wait, order out and outsource the things that you can have done by someone else. That’s a hard thing because money is always a factor, but take a moment to re-evaluate your daily tasks and see where you can find time for self-care, family bonding, or even time with your spouse.
My hope is that this blog post was made just for you! That it sparks a little something in your heart and mind and that I can encourage you to slow down.
