We were talking to a friend the other day. She wants to retire, quit work and do other things. We talk at length of the ins and outs of life changes, what we want, what she wants, what it took for us, decisions, challenges, ups and downs, hopes and dreams. Options. We try to give advice and direction when asked and try to provide clarity where there might not be any.
Then she said something funny. “I could never do what you guys have done. I could never live the way you guys live.” I was a bit shaken by that. What exactly does she think we have done? How does she think we live?
I guess she meant to question our recent life changes and liquidation process. We quit our jobs, sold our house, car, and pretty much all our stuff and moved on to a bit of a nomadic life. For the first time since I was 4, I don’t own a bike. Hell, I don’t even have keys to anything. We now own a couple backpacks, a couple suitcases, some clothes, a laptop, camera, a couple passports and a few other items and are on our 4th place to live in the last year with many more planned in the next. That’s it. We have nothing. The funny thing is, though, is that we didn’t do all this to embrace nothingness or anything. We aren’t out in the world, walking from rental room to rental room simply for the nothingness. As much as I want to be Caine from Kung Fu, I’m not. The things is, we had a plan. The only problem is, this plan is weird, kind of fucked up right now with world events, often painful.
We’ll discuss our suspect timing later. I mean, hey, let’s quit our jobs, sell everything, and go on walkabout during a global pandemic and worldwide financial crisis.
After years of actually trying to be somewhat self aware, I think I can now identify most everything in life that brings me joy, and now I seem to be actively, intentionally separating myself from those things. We are clearing out our lives. We are erasing the chalk board. I am in constant conflict.
Yes, I like having a quiet space for me. I like a TV with Netflix, even though we don’t watch much TV. I like my home audio system that plays my favorite playlists from AppleMusic or Pandora or whatever I like that day. I like Whole Foods, Costco, and Amazon Prime. Not for the organics ,buying in bulk stuff, and the inflated sense of smugness, but for the little things. Whole Foods is awesome. Costco is the best place to buy olive oil and a large container of organic peanuts, and I like olive oil and large containers of organic peanuts. And Amazon is how I can get anything else I want delivered in two days. America is the best at consumerism. I love our climate, our mountains and trails.
We lived in Denver for 25 years and I like the aspects of Denver – Colorado, and America – that I like; the diversity, the restaurants, the media, the natural beauty and the availability of whatever I want, whenever I want it. I love and appreciate everything that our lives have afforded us.
But somewhere along the way, we decided to try to make a new life somewhere else. We wanted to quit working, first and foremost, go on walkabout for a bit to shake out the cobwebs of the last 30 years, and live more simply and more deliberately (and less expensively). We wanted to explore new cultures and see how others live. We want to traipse…hike and bike and travel and eat and drink. And, we made very specific lists of what elements of life we liked and where we could find those best. When we have traveled in the past, we would note elements of life we loved and other aspects of life we didn’t necessarily have in our current; cafe culture, walkable cities, market culture, better weather, more local fruits and veggies, cheap good wine, affordable healthcare, yada, yada, yada.
Before we knew it, we had built an ideal on how we wanted to live. Now, no matter how painful or awkward or uncomfortable in the short term, everything we do is in pursuit of that ideal. We decided to liquidate all our stuff so we didn’t have to store it and move it. We sold it all so we could wander for a bit and find our new home without worrying about shit we had somewhere else. And, maybe most importantly, we sold all our shit and moved on simply to see what it was that we actually found to be important. We intentionally separated ourselves from everything we thought gave us comfort and joy in order to find it all again.
Now we have nothing and are ready to build again. And I am confident we can create our most perfect life wherever we want…somewhere close or somewhere far. We’ll buy a little house or condo, in the right place, minimalistic, simple, and live there in peace and happiness. We’ll find a place where we can traipse, hike and bike. We’ll find a place that has great local food and wine, hiking and biking trails, and the other elements of life we have deemed important for this period of life. Our hope is we’ll find this mystical place as we wander over the next couple years.
So, even though it seems odd and confusing, I guess what we are trying to do is thread the needle and find a new life somewhere else and incorporate all we currently love with what we hope to find. Only problem is that we had to erase the current for the hope of the future. We are giving birth to a new life, and the labor pains are a bitch.
We hear a lot of our friends tell us they could never do what we are doing. They could never sell everything they own and live out of backpacks, not at our age. They could never go the nomad route and leave what they have behind. But when I ask them what their ideal life is, what is important to them, and what they want in the future, often they can’t answer. Then, after much discussing and distilling, hard questions and challenging statements, when they do decide what they want and where they want to be, they often don’t know what they can do or need to do to get there. Then, interestingly, what we are doing is actually pretty easy to understand.
We’re erasing the chalk board before starting to scribble again. Maybe that’s not so weird after all.
