Going on Down the Road
“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.” - e.e. cummings
For the past three years Josh and I have been on a journey of loss and discovery, trying to grow up and become who we really are. What at first looks like wreckage, you realize later was necessary deconstruction. Once we flipped the nearly empty apple cart back over, we were able to keep our home and each other and our two kids, Stella and Eli. This deserves more of an explanation but you’ll have to go with me a little further before we can back up.
Because it’s time to get on down the road. Literally.
Back in the summer, we prompted Stella to read the chapter of Bob Goff’s book, Love Does, where he shares how he let each of his own kids design an adventure of their choosing for a milestone birthday. The whole experiment is a practice in listening to your Whimsy and God’s whisper of adventure in your heart.
As Stella began describing her dream of driving up the East Coast in a motorhome, I realized how insincere it sounded when I told her, “God puts adventure in our hearts. She will speak into your heart if you have ears to hear. She’s full of wonder and she’s inviting you to dance.”
Looking around at the comfort of our home, the safety of our surroundings, the very status quo nature of our lives, the systems and standards we had silently agreed to, I saw that even after all this change and all that loss, it is in our nature to go back to what we know, to do what the world tells us is normal, to agree to all of these unspoken agreements.
What Else
I let myself fantasize about what else was possible. Our kids are developmentally in these wildly important years of learning and becoming. We live on the best cul-de-sac a mom could hope for surrounded by families that are more like cousins and God planted one of my Capital F Friends in my backyard, or at least just behind the fence. Moving was out.
Like before, I let myself sit with this fantasy of pilgrimage, of transformation, of Whimsy, of God’s whispers. I was still praying for God to take anything from us that was holding us down, binding us up or keeping us stuck. That’s when the idea of leaving it behind started to seep in.
From What Else to What If
I’m oversimplifying days and months, tears and prayers, angst and anticipation. But pretty quickly after what if came why not.
I went to meet with the kid’s Principal, who is a delight and has been good to my children and advocated for them during really challenging times. I was walking into talk to a person who would not think, at least completely, that I was a crazy person. I asked her to talk me out of it and tell me all the reasons not to pull my kids out of school and go on the road. She didn’t. She was gracious and full of possibility. And also full of reality. It wouldn’t be perfect but it was possible.
So, the dream of going on down the road went from fantasy to possibility. I went full on madwoman logistical on it. Can we afford it? What does it mean to homeschool? Will I be able to keep working from the road? Can you pee while driving? WILL THERE BE WIFI?
But, as you know, when God whispers Whimsy into your heart, when the call to the wild comes, you go. You go without knowing. You say yes without all the answers. And then you plan like hell.
We told the kids over Thanksgiving break. And then for the next thirty days, we poured every ounce of our tiny bits of extra time and energy into figuring it out. We traded Josh’s car in for a much less expensive and towable car, payed my car off, and bought the RV. I met with a homeschool mom to get the 411 on how to pull off a semester on the road. I finished my Executive Coaching program at UTD.
And on Christmas night, we pulled out of the cul-de-sac for our first adventure going on down the road.
“If you want to get warm you must stand near the fire: if you want to be wet you must get into the water. If you want joy, power, peace, eternal life, you must get close to, or even into, the thing that has them.”
― C.S. Lewis
