Vanna's insides

Vanna's insides

Sunday, October 11, 2015

Stability? Or Insanity

I think this is supposed to feel better...

Lots have asked me if I would ever live in the van again.  Maybe some were genuinely curious, others I know were just waiting for me to say "no."  But I absolutely would.  And tonight, tossing and turning, miserable in the acceptable, it's all I can think about.  I was never, not once, miserable as a van dweller.  But I say I would do it again with the caveat of the necessity for greater discretion.  Other people were the hardest part.  The sneaking from some and justifying to others was just such a great weight.  The experience of living that way in itself was freeing, but the expectations of others was exhausting.  And that isn't something I've been able to see a way around even with the objectivity granted by a year's worth of time and distance away from the road.

Tonight I am too awake in my recently leased one-bedroom apartment.  The need for more work in order to pay for it is forever on my mind.  The truth is I'm miserable.  I feel ungrateful for my circumstances and cowardly for my hesitations about changing them.

Urban van-dwelling was not hard.  Urban van-dwelling and working a 9-5 corporate job was hard.  But this, this scraping by for something you can see isn't what it is supposed to be, this is harder.  This is affecting my spirit in a way that scares me.  And everyone around me keeps getting drunker, and now for the first time, I feel close to joining them just to take my mind off of it all for an hour or two.

I don't mind (too much) the doing of a job, the working, solely for someone else's gain, I genuinely do enjoy my vocation; I mind that not being enough.  I mind those hours not being enough of a sacrifice and more being required of me in order to merely stay afloat.  And more is what I feel is being taken from me when I'm still struggling even after accomplishing what has been asked of me, what I've been told is required of me, and what I've been force-fed into believing could bring me some peace...

23 comments:

  1. OH MY GEEZ! I feel so connected to you right now.... justifying to others is what's making my vehicle dwelling experience hard. I've lived it since day one (Aug 27,15). I am one who still has to work my regular job too, but I love living in my SUV so much, it's fine with me. I work at a public school, middle school, so I can shower there. but the summer of 2017 I'm not gonna work and am going to travel the East Coast! I hope you get back to your van, forget the others and society sis!!! ;)

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    1. what a goddamn fabulous note to get. BLESS YOUR SPIRIT, THANK YOU FOR THE LOVE and ENERGY!!!!

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  2. So many of us have difficulties reconciling society's expectations and what we truly love! Join us, those who have thrown off the yoke of normalcy! It's wonderful here!

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  3. Everybody's got to eat, reason enough to work. The other thing to remember is why you moved into an apartment in the first place.

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  4. Great thoughts. Not only the money it takes just to have a place to put your head down at night, but the soul it takes away from you to keep doing it just to appear 'normal' to everyone else is just too much! Go for it!!

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    1. SO APPRECIATE THE WORDS OF ENCOURAGEMENT!! Take care of yourself and your strong spirit.

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  5. When people ask me why I choose to live the way I do I tell them it's my right to choose it's called freedom and if they don't like then that is their problem I really think that the reason people give us grief because they can't do what we do. Good luck in the choice you make .

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    1. thank you for you and yours. do take care out there

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  6. In my 50's small town, trusting in the goodness of others was what we did. Sad that conforming and fear of others is now so much a part of our "society". Sitting in apartment, recovering from surgery. Believing today's lessons will build a stronger future.

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    1. deep breaths, trying to remember to take deep breaths...
      thank you for being present with me. sending time and healing your way.

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  7. I think you made a reasonable choice, and it's not permanent. Come spring, you can make your next choice. Enjoy your time away from prying questions and the safety of walls.

    I'm missing my van. I wasn't a permanent vandweller, but a traveler. But it gave me the option of going away and being a nomad. Van was totaled, and I can't live in the truck I got.

    Be well. I look forward to hearing about whatever's next.

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  8. I feel you! My exact thoughts recently. Living in the truck is not hard... living in the truck and waking up at 5am each morning to find a way to look business casual and silently agree with the pressures of my peers at the new job is hard!!!... the first few months, i was waitressing at night in a city where i had established friends and found the fun and freedom of leaving my apartment... a turn of events brought me to a new city which i adore but i have been feeling those pressures and assumptions and even discomfort as feedback from those ive shared my story with!! So i hold it in like my little not-so-secret secret and i honestly have had those thoughts.... "WISH i could just be satisfied with my day job and nails did and new clothes and appliances and yada yada yada".... nothing wrong with those things.... but those things never did it for me.... my best moments recently have been waking up to see a deer or a coyote by my vehicle first thing in the early morning... the rain on my camper shell.... the quiet... the noise!...the ocean views and hilltops ive slept on!! Going from an easy part time job to a new more challenging full time job with the truck life....was in some ways satisfying but then it really changed my freedom feeling.. because im locked in most nights to parking in a easy to get ready at 5am with no home kinda a thing!! And it even made me look at apartments .... like pulling teeth with each craigslist click!! And making me think "whats wrong with me! Why am i acting like a HOME is sooo bad" ?!?!?!?
    Alternative- im buying a 23 ft trailer. Ha... instead of giving it all to rent or busting my balls to make this job AND lifestyle work... im buying a simple little thing to call it my own.. and when life takes a turn again... my trailer and i are hitting the road !!
    Good luck! ♡♡♡♡

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    1. you so get it. so grateful for posts like yours/people like you to share/commiserate/celebrate it all with. keep on keepin' on, my dear soul!! so much love, strength and gratitude <3

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  9. thank you for sharing this. it stirs up thoughts of philosophy and what freedom means, and what we think is normal, and what slaves/drudges we are, and how we take too much for granted and ... how we live in boxes others approve of, and how little we question the choices we make, even when they are irrational, because it's how everyone around us does things... but not everyone around you behaves the exact same way. it just looks that way. i hope you find a way to live that you are at peace with.

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  10. Follow your heart baby. And remember that nothing is permanent. Constant flow, constant change. Just be with where you are right now and remember you moved there knowing it is not forever. Wherever this path takes you. Enjoy the journey there.

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  11. I relies that it's now March of 2017 and it's been almost two years since your last post. But I'm riveted. I'm completely captivated by your blogs. DO you have more? I would eat them up. I read through these posts like a dying woman finding a well in the desert.
    Your life has helped me and it's been two years since most of these moments have happened, isn't that incredible? It's almost like you've time traveled, haha.
    I just wanted to say a couple things...a)thank you for having the courage to do these things and follow though with what your life needed, and in turn helping me follow through with what I feel like my life needs. Living in my CRV-Vulcan with my Scottish Fold, Nairobi. b) Your humor and honesty, and your forgiveness for people and life is astonishing and beautiful. And it's helping me remember that I used to be like that too, and the only person stopping me from feeling that inner beauty is me.
    c) if you ever have the time to write more, or if you have written more, I would LOVE read them! Or even just chat. It's hard to find people who understand this ideal lifestyle.

    Thank you for being you! I hope you keep writing...

    Your friends,

    Murphy(me), Nairobi(my fur baby) and Vulcan(CRV)

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    1. This was... incredible to read.
      Thank you thank you thank you, Shannon. Sometimes the universe gives us little gifts of encouragement at the times we need it most and I think your comment was that to me. I'm about to start writing more frequently again, and this was such a boost. I'm no longer a van dweller, but I do still write. A couple pieces are here:
      http://thepostscripters.blogspot.ca/2016/09/a-work-in-progress.html
      I really need to emphasize what a gift it was to read your words. Thanks so much, dear woman. And I hope you are being kind to that heart of yours!!!
      Do take care,
      P.

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  12. I'm so glad! I love your writing, it's almost like your speak directly to the reader, me.
    I'm glad I decided to take a moment and type that (twice, cause it deleted it the fist time!).
    What changed your mind to no longer be a vandweller?

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  13. March 2022 and your words are still reverberating with the sound of freedom...inspiring.
    I ought to be sleeping but instead I've just finished reading your whole blog. I wonder what you are doing now, Lady of the Deep? What you feel when you think back to your time on the road? What ponderings and experiences you've had since then that only you could share?
    I wish you well in whatever you are doing, where ever life has taken you. And if you aren't writing (which I hope you are even if privately) that you've found another creative outlet.

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    1. This was magic.
      All of the love.
      I am here: https://pamstewartwrites.com/2022/01/11/i-was-the-other-woman-for-years-and-had-no-idea/
      Be so well. <3

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