Let’s sell our house and move into a camper! Those are words I never thought I would hear my husband say, much less words I would agree to. If there is one thing I have learned from the short time I have been a parent is to never say never.
It’s funny how you have all these “nevers” in your head before you have kids. I will never let my kid do that, or say that, or eat that are among the few, but we eat, I mean choke on those words sooner or later. I was told having children will change your lives forever and I was ready for that change (well as ready as I could be anyway). But what I did not expect, was that having children would change the way I see the world and view my life in general.
I was initially convinced BK (before kids) that God gave us nine months of pregnancy to prepare for children so we had time to buy all the “stuff” we needed. While I was pregnant my husband and I discussed how we could we upgrade everything. Because that is what you do when you have kids right? We would need to add square footage to our house to give us more space and the back seat of my SUV was waaay too small. So of course we needed a bigger and safer vehicle as well.
These were just a few of the conversation topics that arose as we planned for the arrival of our bundle of joy. Little did I know all those plans were about to go out the window. After the birth of our daughter, Hensley, just as I had been warned, everything did change.
My life was no longer just MY life, but it was now OUR life. My thoughts changed, my mindset changed, my priorities changed, EVERYTHING changed but in a good way (well except for my body but thats neither here nor there these days). My thoughts were no longer as materialistic centered as before, but now my concern was how was I ever going to get enough time with my new love?
Thats when my husband approached me with a video he came across on the internet. The video was of a family who lived in a camper and traveled the country living life to the fullest. They spent their days no longer slaves to the long work weeks, or trying to keep up with Jones’s, but instead filled with quality family time. If you’ve got a couple of minutes, check it out!
This was a lifestyle I had never thought about, it sounded crazy, and like crazy fun! It was just the life I was looking for. Now with the impending doom of returning from maternity leave approaching, and many of you know that exact feeling I’m talking about, I had the thought that I would give anything to spend more time with this sweet baby girl.
The word ANYTHING got put to the test. Would I sell my house and everything in it to have more freedom and time ?
I went to work every day to pay for stuff that I really didn’t care about.
The reality of that hit me as I climbed in that bigger SUV that I thought I had to have to be a good parent and left my oversized home behind as I went to work in tears and left my child behind to pay for it all. What I really cared about was my family and all the love for my stuff had transferred over to them.
Let me explain because I just made that sound easy. It was an easy decision but a hard process. I knew with all my heart I wanted to do this journey for my family, but looking back over the past year of prepping for this experience, the sacrifice has been great. It is a great sacrifice, but I’m confident so is the reward.
Letting go is not easy, but we get so much more in return. I can honestly say after going through this process I have not missed or regretted getting rid of anything in return for this freedom and lifestyle.
So here we go! As we embark on this new adventure with less junk and more journey, we have become homeless in a sense. We sold our house, bought ourselves a camper, and truly made home where the heart is. We realized we didn’t need a house to be a family. It's actually quite opposite. Sometimes the less house we have the more “home” we get in return.