The Uncoventional Path - We're a house away from the RV

After three months of doing everything we've been putting off for the last four years, Kara and I finally wrapped on home improvements, and got the house on the market. 

Scariest. $%&^. Ever.

When we first got this house, and we put our names on those lines saying we commit to paying $X per month for the next 30 years, that was scary. When we found out I had a birth defect in my heart that meant I'd have to have a pacemaker, that was scary. When we got married and the economy tanked, and I lost my job as a copywriter, and money was "that thing we've heard about, and might want to see in person some day," that was scary. 

But all of that pales next to what it will mean when we sign the papers and hand over the keys to this house we've lived in, loved, and nurtured for the past four years. Because that's when the $%&^ gets real. That's when we find ourselves committed to The Unconventional Path (TM). 

All our lives, all either of us ever really thought about the future was that one day we'd own a brick home with a concrete driveway (a thing unheard of in the shale-strewn drives of my Wild Peach youth). We figured we'd eventually adopt some kids, or perhaps find some left in a shopping cart at Walmart. And we thought, surely, we will grow into doddering old folks who bicker incessantly and take in every stray cat in the neighborhood. 

That last one is still sort of a contender. 

But what we never imagined was that we might decide, in our youthful forties, to sell the house and cram our lives into a fifth-wheel travel trailer full time. That, dear reader, would have been considered crazy-town-banana-pants. 

And yet, here we are. 

This idea is crazy, right? It's nuts? Because normal people who have already spent their time building careers and buying  houses and doing normal married couple stuff don't do this kind of thing. They take up gardening. They throw Superbowl parties. They join a country club. 

We've never been normal. That's largely my fault.

This journey is all about shedding "normal" altogether, honestly. It's about breaking the pattern we've fallen into, getting us out of the mode wherein we knock off from work, eat dinner on the sofa, and watch TV until one of us falls asleep and the other one harasses them about it. And sheesh, why can't I just sleep through the end of the show? It's not like I'm missing our kid's first steps or something. 

The truth is, at some point you have to decide whether living is what you're going to do, or if it's something you're going to watch instead. We've watched enough. Now I want to step out and do a bit of it myself.

This week we've gotten some bids on the house, and that's fan-freaking-tastic. We also went and toured more RVs than I can count, and we think we've found the one for us. And we looked at trucks to pull it—the verdict for which is still out. But on the whole, we think we've managed to put together a sort of plan for moving forward—which will have to be enacted very quickly once the house sells. 

I can't wait.