And the days keep getting shorter.....

We have been enjoying family and the St. Augustine area  for nearly 4 weeks but it only seems like a few days have gone by. Evenings are already coming sooner in the day and we have only touched on a few of the many things we  had hoped to be a part of before we moved on to our next planned destination.

It seems like we have barely gotten started here and already our departure is looming up in front of us. Well, that can be fixed and we have done so by extending our stay another month. Boy! Do I feel better!  Just a little tweak in the plans and we are good, again. Love this lifestyle!

However, this does make me think a bit about what has gotten us to this point over so many years.  A lot has certainly been about our own directed efforts to see this lifestyle realized but many things have slipped, skewed and bubbled up in front of our planning and have all had to become a part of making this happen.

I understand that there are laws of physics which say things like, you can't be in two different places at the same time and water flows downhill. But there are other laws which we all experience but no one ever explains. These include;

1. The more fun you are having the less time you have left to enjoy it.
2. When you are feeling poorly is when mechanical things will break.
3. Wifi will be great as long as you don't really need it.

I think Murphy touched on the notion of these "other" laws with his "If something can go wrong, it will." Over my life, I have seen plenty of anecdotal evidences of their existence in painfully humorous sayings and jokes.  They are like the sandspurs of reality in the calmly soft flesh of relaxation and enjoyment.  They cannot be ignored but we don’t really want to experience them, either. Trying to be ready to deal with them is more like planning your own funeral arrangements decades (hopefully) in advance of your actual demise….it is something that few are even willing to talk about much less invest their time into the preparations.

 

So I really think that MacGyver had it right.... Be Prepared and always bring your A game, first.... you may not get any do-overs.  Making the future turn out to be something like you have imagined is a clear win, in my book.

 

Ten-plus years of working towards a full-timing lifestyle has passed and we are now there.  I cannot say  with any certainty that there was any particular time or event that made it happen because it seems like we were always working towards this state with our long term planning and our spontaneous daily choices.

 

It has not played out like we thought we had been planning it. Economics, family and political circumstances and personal preferences have all worked sideways to our desires but we have still pressed on and become that which we desired.. Full time Rvers.

 

Along the way, we have learned that this is not a turn-key lifestyle change.  Just to purchase the equipment and fund the excursions does not make the lifestyle. One must be invested in its process and envision its rewards, complications and costs before it can be meaningfully experienced. A lack of emotional investment in it may rob the life of its savor and it will just pass as all other time does, with some memories and some pictures relating a long vacation.... somewhere else.

 

It is worth doing well if you really want to do it at all and this means making it a long term goal and focus.  Just thinking that one can “try it out” for a little while may be the very thing that ruins it for them.

 

Yoda was right!  "Do or Do Not.  There is no Try!"

As one reader pointed out... I never got to the point of this blog.... senior moment or just tired, maybe, so I have reworked it a bit for clarity.

 

To be clear, for sure we are enjoying this RV life. Though it has not played out as we foresaw, it has probably turned out better than we ever imagined.

I feel that this is because we have kept moving towards it for the past 10 years despite all the "life junk" strewn in our path.  We have been invested in its success all along the way so that now, we truly own it and relish each day in it. What we dreamed and worked for is now our life and we are blessed to be here.

 

ttfn

Budd