When I look back six years to the beginning of our journey I know my short term goal was to get out of the rut we were in and simply do something! Our careers we over, our children had busy families of their own, we lived in virtually two rooms of our 8 room house, our yard work was absolutely no fun anymore and all the things we thought might fill the big hole in our lives were not doing the job! I was beginning to be a real self-absorbed pitiful Pearl! I knew I needed a change....Paul was dealing with his paradigm change much better and was actually ok with the way things were. Travel has always been my passion...so my thoughts turned to a long road trip. After much thought and deliberation....cost/size/must-have features/upkeep/towability/and COST....I decided on a Casita Freedom deluxe! We bought a Nissan Pathfinder as our tow vehicle drove to Rice, Texas and picked MiniPearl up on Valentine Day 2012! We leased our house for two years, moved everything to a huge storage unit and hit the road....for that long road trip .... which turned into a move to Kansas City, selling our house and living in a one bedroom apartment on the eighth floor overlooking the Country Club Plaza! Oh! The places you’ll go!
I thought I had become a minimalist but that was a joke. I still was shopping...my happy place! For four years we didn’t do much traveling and that was ok, but I was dealing with my relationship with things and the realization that those things were really holding me hostage! Plus I was spending too much money on stuff, plane and simple. I wanted to be free of the weight of those things!
We still had MiniPearl and Willy Nelson (out Nissan)....this time our adventure would be full-time with perhaps a five year duration. No large storage unit...we’d only keep what would fit in the very smallest and cheapest. We held a 6 day estate sale, and the remainder of our stuff cleaned out and picked up for a meager $300. That was hard to watch....all that stuff meant something to me, it had value way beyond $300....but now it was gone for good....I have to admit I had a melt-down.
Maybe this has been way too long...sorry. On one hand I’m pretty sure most quit reading at the first sentence, but if you stuck it out to right here perhaps you’ll see my story is one of victory with a happy ending! Kind of like Bilbo letting go of “the Ring”.....I let go of my stuff so I could have adventure!
TTFN,
CATHY
