This is raw. It’s unfiltered. It’s messy. It has bad words. I wrote this in the middle of feeling it, and I’m not cleaning it up. Read at your own risk.
I live in a van full-time with my dog, Wolf E. I’m trying to build a wilderness skills teaching business from scratch, on the opposite side of the country from the places i consider to be home. And I’m also working through the aftershocks of a breakup. Some days this life feels like the ultimate freedom. Some days it feels like I’m getting absolutely crushed. This was one of those days.
I am struggling so much. I don’t know why I choose to make my life so fucking hard. Like, I’m fucking miserable. It’s so hot, and then it just downpours, and then it’s so hot again.
There’s this one spot I found where I can hang out with Wolf E and not be miserable when it’s hot—this little creek spot—but then the fucking bugs come out and we have to leave again. I feel like I’m constantly running: running from the heat, or the rain, or the bugs, or fucking people who are yelling at me for throwing trash in a trashcan. I know I’m making my life harder by living in a van. I know I’m making my life harder by trying to start a business by myself when I have no idea what’s going on.
But I just don’t think I could be happy living a “normal” life. I’m not happy doing this. Right now I don’t see a life path where I’d be happy. It’s so disheartening.
Poor Wolfie’s been sick for so long. She had runny poops again yesterday. I don’t know if I’m making her sick, if living in the van stresses her out. She seems so happy to be able to go to work with me and do everything together. I took her to the vet, got all the tests done, and they came back clean. But I’m scared I’ve made her life harder.
I just feel so alone. I know the decisions that got me here. I just don’t know why I can’t make friends. I understand that some of my choices have put me on a lonelier path, but I feel like I’m so far from everything. But I can’t stop now—I have to keep going. I have to make something happen.
I don’t get how people do it. I don’t get how people just… live normal lives and are okay. I don’t get how people find all of the time and energy it takes to create their own path either. I’m just stuck in this middle place where there’s fucking nothing.
I feel so far away from both options. I feel so far away from creating a normal life with a little corporate job and a steady routine. And I feel so far away from creating these courses, building this business, and actually being successful. I feel so far away from everything. And I don’t know how to get out of this.
I can’t stay stuck in this phase of my life—it’s been six fucking years—where I’m just alone all the time, starting projects I don’t finish, pushing people away, falling into things I can’t follow through with. I can’t do this anymore. I’m so done.
I just want a cute fucking little house and a cute fucking little family. I want to go to the gym every morning. I want to come home and clean the house. I want to sleep in a big bed and I want a stupid number of extra ugly pillows on the couch. I want to take a bath every night. I want to have enough money to order takeout all the time. I want it delivered. Every. Time.
I want a lot of friends who come over every Friday night. I want to host potlucks. I want a garden—my own garden. I want to stop working in other people’s fucking gardens. I want a fridge. I want a fucking house with a toilet. I want air conditioning so bad, you don’t understand. I want a climate-controlled house with a fridge and a toilet that flushes that I won’t even have to think about.
I want a massive, cushy dog bed for Wolf E. I want to give her a sibling. I want another dog. I want a big yard for them to run around in. I want so many friends to come over and hang out in that big yard. I want friends. I want to go inside when the bugs come out. I want to go inside when it rains. I want to go inside when it’s a million humid degrees and I can’t breathe and Wolf E looks like she’s melting. I want to sit on the couch. I want to take my shoes off inside.
I’m living this life where I don’t wear shoes very often, but every time I go inside somewhere, I have to put my shoes on. I never get to take my shoes off inside because I don’t have an inside of my own.
I want a relationship I can count on. I want to come home to the same person every night. I want to know they’re going to be there to hold me when I walk in the door, to eat dinner with me, to watch TV with me(if you know anything about me you know that watching TV is not something I want to do, hardly ever). I fucking hated my ex’s projector, but I miss it so badly right now.
I want the air to be dry enough to brush my hair. I want to have the energy to create things, to make art, to go for a run. I want to watch the sunset every night. I want to drink tea and read books. I want time.
I want to go on walks because I want to, not because I’ll overheat and die if I stay in my home for more than a few minutes. I want to go on walks because it’s beautiful out. I want to go on walks with friends.
When I lived in a house, I didn’t do anything. I sat around and wasted all of my time in the big bed, or on the couch, or the comfy dining room chairs, so many places to sit and get lost in inactivity. And I was so frustrated with myself the entire time for not doing any of the things I needed to do to create the life I wanted. Now that I live in a van, I can’t rest. We have to be constantly on the move, constantly looking for a place just to exist without peoples criticism and judgment, a place to relax without overheating or being devoured by bugs, or drenched by a sudden downpour. I just want balance. I want the energy to do the things I love. I want the time and a place to rest.
I don’t fucking get it, dude. I don’t understand how people exist in this world and seem fine. Some of them even seem happy. I just don’t get how people can be okay, how people live normal lives and are happy and satisfied. Every time I feel myself living in what I would consider to be normalcy I feel this intense frustration on such a deep level. But I don’t get how people create their own path either. I’m stuck in the middle where everything is just hard.
Today, I couldn’t even find a place to park in the shade. I’m sitting in this little patch of grass by the side of the road, across from a park, 15 feet from my van because it’s too hot to do the cleaning, organizing, and other chores I need to do inside the van. I can’t even go to my creek spot today. I have to stay in town because I’m selling something to this guy later. I have to go see my ex because the thing I’m selling is at his house, in my old van, and after I sell the thing to the marketplace man I have to give my ex the title and the keys to my old van that he’s buying from me.
I’m not ready to see him. I’m hurting so bad. I don’t think he’s been affected by this at all. I’m hurting so badly.
When we talked on the phone the other day, he was like, “Why are you being so short with me? I’m not used to talking to you like this.” And I’m like, “Yeah dude, I’m fucking hurting. You broke up with me. A second time. I’m not going to be sweet and lovey dovey with you on the phone like I was when we were together.” I haven’t seen him since the recent breakup. I’ve been working as much as I can to distract myself. And it’s helping. But I’m not ready to see him.
He seems good. He seems like he’s just thriving, having all these adventures with all of his friends, his many, many friends. They’ve been going to shows, hanging out, everyone’s so smiley in all the photos. I accidentally landed on his Facebook the other day. Bad idea. He changed his profile picture. He looks so youthful and bright and happy.
I’ve learned so much from that relationship. I know I’m about to have the glow-up of my life—if I could just get some sleep. If I could just take a nap without overheating. If I could cook some food on a regular stove. Oh my god, I want a sink. I want a sink with a faucet to wash my dishes. That would change my life. A sink and a fridge.
I’m happily shit in a bucket and carry it to a humanure compost pile every day. I don’t need a flushing toilet. It sounds nice, but I just need a place to shit. I hate having to search for a place to shit.
I hate watching Wolf E overheat in the humidity. I hate that she’s been having diarrhea so often and I don’t know if it’s because of something I did. The vet doesn’t even know what’s going on. It’s really hard to do all of this alone.
I thought I got good at being alone. Every time I think that, I have the biggest breakdown. I don’t think humans are meant to be alone. I don’t think this is natural or healthy or okay. I think not having a community will fucking kill me.
And I don’t know why I feel that so strongly and at the same time, I’m so fucking annoyed by everyone around me. I’m so easily pissed off by people lately. I keep joking that I hate humans so much. I feel so much hate in my body when I interact with people these days, but I also long so deeply for connection.
And it’s making me feel like I’m actually losing my mind.