For some time now I've been scheming about how to simplify my life, get out of the corporate world, and do things I actually enjoy doing, such as spending more time with my husband and children. I've contemplated building an earthship, living in a yurt, buying a mobile home, illegally immigrating to France and selling Eiffel tower keychains on the Champ de Mars--anything to make it happen. Of course, all of my ideas have a catch. For one, there's too much competition on the Champs de Mar. For two, I don't have land to build an earthship (or erect a yurt or pull a mobile home) on. To buy land, I'd have to have, essentially, a mortgage payment, which would mean a job, and since the only job I'm skilled to do is accounting, I'm pretty much stuck working for a corporation, so...as you can see, I'm back at square one. Plus, even if I were to be given land (my aunt has said I could build on her property--but no mobile homes, which means a fairly sizable chunk of debt still since I'm sure she wouldn't go for a yurt either), giving up my paychecks would mean that we'd be pretty much stuck. No extra funds for vacations and travel, and I love to travel, so that would be a huge bummer.

Well, this time I think I've found the solution! Full-time RVing! A much less expensive and certainly much simpler form of shelter combined with full-time vacation and travel. Why didn't I think of this before?! Donald is all for it, too. And Lizzie, now that she's decided to be homeschooled, could go, too, if she so chooses (and I hope she does). Benjamin, of course, would be along for the ride, as would both dogs. (For anyone who doesn't know me, I have a "his, mine, and ours" family: Benjamin is our three-year-old son; Lizzie is my 16-yr-old daughter from a previous marriage; "the dogs" are Shirley, a year-old standard poodle, and Sadie, a five-ish-month-old of uncertain ancestry [i.e. the rescue dog I had to get for, among other reasons, assuaging the guilt I felt for buying the poodle from a breeder]. I have another child, William, who is 20 and currently living at home and going to school full-time. He has a steady girlfriend and plans to move out on his own sometime in the next year so he won't be coming with us. Donald has three grown children, Elizabeth, Ian, and Alex, all of whom live elsewhere with families of their own.)

Now...all I have to do is make it work. I just have to come up with a plan and turn my dream into reality.

And that's the hard part. I love having ideas but man, I suck at making plans! When I do things, I often do what "seems" like the right thing to do without too much forethought. Sometimes, fortunately, for me and those around me, I do more or less get it right using this method, but I fully recognize that going off half-cocked has its risks. But my other "planning" technique is not much better. Rather than going out and doing something without too much forethought, I instead become as obsessed about it as an OCD sufferer at a card counting convention. I will research the subject to death only to then say "Meh, to hell with it" when the research process begins to feel like work. Or...I research it to death and get so caught up in that process that I second guess myself about every little thing and end up living my dream in my mind only.

Any way you look at it, my usual M.O. isn't going to work here. I need to achieve that normally elusive (for me) balance of reality checking and planning with just getting the hell out there and doing it.

It has only been one day since this particular light bulb went off in my head and I'm definitely headed down the obsessed path. My current wallpaper is a picture of an Airstream motorhome, I have at least six websites dedicated to the subject of full-time RVing, and I've joined my first forum (FOTR--Families on the Road). I've even learned some new weblingo! (E.g. "s&b" means "sticks and bricks" or what those poor saps who live in one place all the time call home; "roadschooling" is what would be known as homeschooling to those who live in s&bs.)

I also started a "do you think you could..." discussion on my favorite mommy google group, and been met with lots of "Are you !@$%ing crazy?!" reactions.* Which I completely expected, but not out of this particular group. I mean, if the crazies think you're crazy, you might want to seriously question your sanity, right? But...I think it's important to keep in mind that most of these women are fairly newly married, still in the acquisition phase of life, and have small children only. I've always had more than a goodly share of wanderlust (Right behind my childhood dream of being a jockey was a dream of joining the circus. One year I almost talked myself into stealing away backstage when my parents weren't looking.), but had someone asked me five years into my first marriage would I want to get rid of all of my possessions and take off on the road permanently with a small child I'd have laughed heartily at such an insane suggestion and then recommended a good therapist for the asker.

But that was then, this is now. And now I've had about all of the possessions I can stand (and certainly more than I can afford). I'm acutely aware of how quickly children grow and how drastically and irrevocably life changes. I have a finite amount of time I'm working with here and at this point I'm not digging how I'm spending it. (An older husband and a round of chemo and radiation really go a long way toward driving that point home.)

Not to mention, at my core, I'm a bum. I enjoy just sitting around and daydreaming. I pine for days of doing nothing but reading books, or taking hikes, or pondering things I've never pondered before. I relish opportunities to have the time and freedom to pursue obsessions. I always have. It's why I identify with (and have become obsessed by) The Big Lebowski. The Dude is what I want to be when I grow up. I want to enjoy life. And not life that thing I have to do everyday to accumulate and maintain the requisite inanimate objects that ensure I have to do the thing I have to do everyday, but life itself. Seeing, doing, being, experiencing, enjoying. Living.

Not that I don't like my inanimate objects, because FSM knows, I sure enough do. I like my things and I like a lot of them. I have spent the past 20+ years in hot pursuit of as many as I can get my hands on. And it will be tough giving them up, there's no question about that. A good book, on a comfy sofa, in a nice house, by the fire, stereo playing, kids elsewhere playing is my idea of a fine time. RVs ain't got fires. Nor can the kids play elsewhere much in one, since there isn't much to elsewhere to be had. I might be crazy, but I'm still mostly in touch with reality. I certainly do like my house (though not necessarily its locations--the 'burbs just aren't for me), and my space, and the stuff in my space. But...I like my husband and my kids and my freetime a lot more.

So, back where I started this: I want to be a gypsy. I want a simple life. I want to see new things and meet new people. I want to be The Dude. But married, with children, in an RV. (And female, of course.) I invite you to join my journey.


*The answer, of course, is yes.