Embracing the Van Life

I woke up on Friday morning and found out that Brett no longer thought an Airbnb was a good idea. I wanted to cry. I knew he was right: Airbnb’s are expensive, finding one I can heal in might be quite difficult and keeping it might be even harder since anyone else could book it in the future. I knew he was right, but I just wanted my imaginary perfect cabin in the pristine mountains! I couldn’t stand another day of apartment hunting in Las Vegas!

Thankfully, Brett didn’t want to spend the day apartment hunting either. We both needed a break. We decided to try one more hotel, a La Quinta in Summerlin that was just over a year old. I felt fine in the room so we booked it. It was so nice to finally take a real shower! 

I spent the rest of the day resting on the bed and to be honest, I don’t remember what I did. I know I wasted time online. I couldn’t focus enough to read or write and I very slowly started to deteriorate. The longer I rested the more tired I got. That’s not how it’s supposed to work! 

Brett decided to take me back to the campground and as we were walking down the hall towards the exit, I got really nauseous and had to vomit into one of Ramona’s potty bags. Uh oh! I guess the hotel wasn’t such a great idea after all. 

When we got back to the campsite, and I had recovered, we started talking about our living situation. Brett was the one who brought up that maybe we should question our assumptions about what we need. 

“We’ve been thinking that we need an apartment or house so that I can work. We’ve been trying to balance being able to make money and having a living situation where you can keep healing. But what if we just picked one thing? What if we just picked what was really best for your health and figured out a way to make the business work around that?”

Hands down, the best thing for my healing is long-term camping. I liked the idea but I was worried abozut him not being able to work consistently enough. 

It made sense though. 

We have a camper van that we spent a lot of money on and only used for about three months. Our expenses could be dramatically reduced if we didn’t have to pay rent. While camping, I feel good without any expensive supplements and air purifiers. 

When we were in Rapid City, we were spending insane amounts of money on a healthy organic food delivery service because I wasn’t well enough to cook. But when we’re camping, I have plenty of energy to cook our own food. My health issues are the main reason our expenses are so high. 

Living out of the van would cut down expenses and force Brett to find ways to run his online business more efficiently with less access to internet. Maybe it could be good for us. Certainly it would expedite my healing. 

The next day confirmed to us that we were on the right track. I stayed at Red Rock Canyon all day and felt so good and clear-headed that I was able to write 5 blog posts! Yes, FIVE! I was also able to clean and decontaminate a bunch of our possessions that we brought from our apartment in Rapid City. I felt happy and peaceful again. I know this is what I need to do to heal and I’m excited about what’s ahead. 

By the way, Brett and I made a beautiful PDF of my favorite resources for suffering souls. I created the content and he made it look fancy with his superduper graphic design skills. It’s available for free to my email subscribers. Click here to sign up and receive 5 Resources for the Suffering Soul.