Van Life - Don't Forget This

For just over a year, I lived full time in my Dodge Promaster 2500 converted van. Here’s what I genuinely thought would happen when I moved into it last fall.

I thought I'd wake up each morning to a breathtaking sunrise, sipping coffee as the wispy clouds turned from lavender to pink to gold. I thought I’d explore slot canyons and remote lakes, make friends at campsites, share beers with random locals at watering holes in one-stop-light towns across America. I thought I'd get back to running, meditating, journaling because what else do you do in a van? I thought I’d fill my quiver with stories that I could pull out and use for magazines, novels, or to entertain grandchildren with one day, decades down the line. I thought I’d make it up to Alaska, down to Mexico, and everywhere in between.

I did witness remarkable sights – Monument Valley, the Petrified Forest, Horseshoe Bend, Las Vegas early pandemic complete with neon signs blinking only for me in a Vanilla Sky sort of way. I wolfed down the juiciest baby back ribs in places where Elvis was still king and cried through the spiciest bowl of green chile in Winslow. I snapped photos in front of the "World's Largest Rocking Chair" in Casey, Illinois, sucked down boiled peanuts in Savannah, white-knuckled my way through rapids on the Colorado River, and fell asleep to sounds of the French Quarter springing to life.

Clinging to a Kentucky Mountain Saddle Horse, I rode through desolate badlands outside of Shiprock, New Mexico, all the while trying to embrace my inner cowgirl and not topple off the back as he glided down steep embankments. After many weeks without a proper shower, I bathed in the freezing cold waters of Lake Powell, inhaling the crisp February desert air and feeling ever so small, just me and my inflatable kayak on the banks of Ice Cream Canyon. I soaked up the splendor of Arches, all alone, and cried in the bright morning sun.

Finally, I checked a cerulean blue alpine lake off my bucket list in Silverton.

I also saw a lot of parking lots, the loneliest of nights, and the grandest of question marks - wondering where I would head to next while simultaneously wanting some specific place to go. I could sketch a blueprint of Walmart from memory by now. I’ve dropped calls all over the American west when I desperately craved a familiar voice in my ear. I peed in a mason jar when there was no bathroom available or when my van toilet smelled so badly that I couldn’t bear to open it. It got rough.

I longed to share some of these memories with another human because it’s way more fun to turn to someone and say “remember when” then to jot it all down on a laptop, hit save, and go to bed, cold in a sleeping bag. I invited childhood friends on some road trips, then my boyfriend, then my dad. And it got messy and hilarious and cramped. Some of my most treasured memories come from when I had a copilot aboard.

Maybe I don’t have as large of a zest for adventure as I thought. Perhaps I am just a homebody with only an iota of curiosity about places unknown. But as I’m writing this, I realize there are still towns I want to see, adventures I want to have. Alone would be alright, with someone special would be preferred. I want to see Big Bend and the Salt Flats. I want to spend a month in Yosemite, a week in the San Juan Islands. I want to drive the Alcan Highway up to Alaska, weep at the sight of Denali in the distance, stare as a Moose ambles down a Fairbanks thoroughfare.

But I also want to be healthy again, to run the same paths and paddle the same lakes until I know every bend of the trail, ever sandy shore, like the back of my hand. I want to get married. I want to throw a holiday party and decorate a Christmas tree and maybe own a house, a tiny house, one day. I want to write all these stories down but need to sit still, mentally and physically, to do so.

I want to be there for my friends when they start having babies and birthday parties and baptisms. I don’t want to be the crazy aunt that drops by whenever she’s around. I don’t want them to shy away from hugging me because they don’t remember me. Or because I smell like b.o. I want to plant a garden in the spring, jump in a leaf pile of my own raking in the fall, walk to the local sled hill in town when the first heavy snow falls.

If I reach for these things, will I ever get the chance to be anonymous at a café table again, reading a book with nowhere in particular to go and no one in particular to be? I don’t want to drive the same streets every day and night. Why can’t you have both? Why can't I have both? Are roots and wings so antithetical that they can never coexist because simply the introduction, the pursuit of one, immediately negates the other?

Many amazing things came from moving into the van – I got reacquainted with the big man upstairs. I started talking to Him again, after almost a decade of silence. Now, I don't go anywhere without Him. I got to know myself, really well. I fell in love with a man who strums his guitar while I cook on a dirty camp stove, a man who twirls me around the dining room of hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurants while we wait for our breakfast burritos.

Good fortune found me and I bought land in a place that I’ve always loved. I paid off debt. I got hired to build out a school bus. I worked alongside my boyfriend and happily discovered that we work really well together, and he’s even more patient, kind, and loving than I thought. I formed so many new, meaningful friendships. I grew up in a lot of ways.

I grew down too. I drank more, smoked more, slept in later, worked out less, showered infrequently. I maybe put makeup on twice in a year. I gained 10 pounds. I stained every item of clothing I owned with some form of grease, oil, dirt, charcoal, and wine. But mostly wine.

I spent inordinate amounts of money at coffee shops just to use a bathroom or speak to another human. I shamelessly threw my trash out in random dumpsters, dumped my gray water in patches of grass beside the highway, and stole fresh water from gas station spigots. But honestly, I kind of liked this grungy version of myself. She actually made me laugh, a lot.

I moved inside a few nights ago, into the home of two kind souls who are renting me a room for the winter. I’m excited, mostly. I hope I can grow in different ways now that I’m indoors full time. I also hope the itch to get out and see things doesn’t fade away. I think that I’ll just always try to have both roots and wings. I don’t really know any other way to be.