It All Comes Down to Connection

**fun blog moment: my last post was my 200th post since I started this blog on April 24th of last year! Now, back to our regularly scheduled program...

There are 3 main reasons I want to live on the road: adventure (the kind you wake up immersed in already), sustainability, and connection.

My oldest daughter and I have had a rocky road over the past few years, and we are better than ever :)) I see a few places in her life where our disconnect is impacting her, so I really want to work on connection with her, connection inside herself and connection with me and with her siblings. The biggest thing I can do to help her find healing is to hold that space for her in my heart and in my head. I know that she already has everything inside of her, all the answers, all the wisdom, all the ability. I hope that I can find that pathway to her heart, so she can find it for herself ♥

Back to the bus... I am petrified of mechanical stuff. I know absolutely nothing about engines and vehicle functions and parts. This fear seduces and lures me away from putting all my eggs in that basket -- I am trying to be safe by holding onto that basket but not putting anything in it that I wouldn't already hold onto anyway.

Can I have the connection I want without hitting the road? What would that take? What would that look like?

Can I have sustainablity? Can I have adventure?

Can I give myself more time before I try to hit the road? Instead of aiming for August, could I wait until maybe March of next year?

The reasonable side of me lures me into that way of thinking with promises like "that will be long enough to learn about vehicles and prepare for the plumbing and electrical that will need to be done and to find solar panels on Craigslist and whatever other supplies possible on Diggers List." It's so easy to talk me out of stepping outside my comfort zone....

I am not trusting the insides of me that want to leave. I wonder if I am running from something or trying to run to something. And it wouldn't matter if this wasn't such a big deal. Giving up my free rent is a big deal (I was on the waiting list for 8 years). Braving the open road in an old bus when I know nothing about vehicles (and they usually don't end well in my care, as well) is a big deal. I can't tell if I am chickening out or if I am flowing through barriers...

In moments of clarity, I see us on the bus. I have never felt more alive inside than imagining our life on the road. Is this fear going to sideswipe my dreams? Is this fear valid? It's like a tug-o-war with my heart.

It requires a leap of faith. It's like when I decided I wanted to homeschool Kass, and it took me 6 months of consuming researching information to feel comfortable to pull her out of school. Why do I take soooooooo incredibly long to do something? Why can't I just leap?

I'm so afraid. I HATE being afraid. I hate when my fears dictate the path I take! Thank you, fears, for wanting to keep me safe, but I don't want to live my life so far from the edge -- I need to feel the breeze ruffle my feathers so I can test these wings! I want to fly!!!!

But what if my wings are broken? I haven't used them in so long........ Can I fly alone? Carrying 3 babies? And a dog... and 2 felines?

Is hitting the road best for them? Noble LOVES having the same friends to play with over and over, and he is so shy with new people and new situations -- would his life be a perpetual "slow-to-warm-up"? Kass has her own little tribe of friends here. How can I take her from it?

What if this life I am dreaming about is not as great as I think it will be? What if the grass isn't actually greener? Then where will we go? What will we do?

.... I know the answer to this (whatever we will do), and I know we will be fine regardless.

It's not the actual fears, it is fear itself that is paralyzing me. It is distrust (which will lead to more problems down the road than any actual course we are set for). I am manifesting my own destiny here -- stay on track!

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...So, this post kinda took me by the seat of my pants. I considered deleting the whole thing, but I am keeping it. Someday, when I look back to those preliminary steps before our lift-off, this blog is going to be important, and maybe it will help someone else who will come looking to see if the tug-o-war inside them is normal before taking off?

I'm going to get back to my original idea for this post :))

It all comes down to connection. I want more connection with my family in my life. I want to be unplugged from the things that distract us from each other, and from the stuff that we use to ease the anxiety that swells up inside of us. The internet is such a 2-sided coin: it connects me to my internet tribe and feeds my brain with information, and it pulls me away from my face life with my kids and pulls my kids away from their face life with us. The problem isn't the internet; we have lost interest in connecting with each other. I am a single mom; I have depended on technology-as-a-babysitter so much that now I am afraid to lose it and desperate to lose it at the same time. Parts of me want to fall off the face of the internet earth and hard-survive face life with people. If I didn't have the internet, how would I get to know people? Would I -- could I survive without Facebook, without connecting with dear friends spread far and wide? Without blogging my heart out? What would my life look like?

Do I need to live on a bus to reconnect with my kids and my own face life? No, probably not. But why do I want to disconnect from this day-in-day-out? I think it's not for me.

A few minutes ago, my attention span (add?) took me to facebook, where a dear friend shared this blog post, called Surrendering to the LIFE the Universe has Planned. I love synchrony as much as I love some of the things she talked aboutthat spoke to my soul. First of all, though... Why do I choke up and start crying at the title? Surrendering? Surrendering my fears? That word has been coming up for me a lot, recently. And smack-dab in my processing thus far was my soul sister, MB's post on surrender, which reminded me that surrender is not the same as succumbing. I will not succumb to my fears on all of this, but I will surrender them and surrender to them, like the healing that happens when we relax for a chiropractic adjustment, like the rush that happens when we release and just let it all go... Maybe once I have stopped resisting, those fears can flow freely and go about their business outside of me? I'm tired of carrying their burden.

So, that "Surrendering to the LIFE the Universe has Planned" post had some great points that totally applied to this post... How about this little gem: "How do I unpack this BIG spiritual/emotional/mental/physical experience I’ve been having into something so small as words?" (oh, but I do try, don't I?)

What about this one:

"I am friends with a lot of entrepreneurs and would-be entrepreneurs and personal development folks.  Goal talk is BIG in these circles.  I see it all over my Facebook feed!  And I went there for a little bit at first.  To the Goal Camp.  But what I had to realize over this past year is slightly embarrassing (only for those circles):  I just don’t care.  I don’t care.  I don’t care about goals.  I don’t care about tracking.  I don’t care about having a plan and having it come to fruition the way I planned it after a lot of hard work.   That became BORING to me quite quickly."

I love to make goals -- they are fun to play with. But maybe this is why I never really follow through with them? ROFL

And this:

In the moments when I wake in the morning with THE DREAD, this is what my reptilian brain thinks I need: A Tried and True Plan, tested by Experts!

But, here’s the secret…

Shhhh…

What I’ve found is SO MUCH MORE. It really is. And I’m not saying this as pie-in-the-sky trying to convince myself or you. Truly, at my core, I’ve had to realize my own freedom. See, when I traded in the 9-5 world for the entrepreneur world, what I essentially found was that I’d just gotten myself in a prettier cage. Not interested. And when I let it go, when I didn’t hire the business coach to tell me to what to do to “foolproofly” make all the money I need, I felt oddly free. I don’t HAVE TO follow anyone else’s rules. I live in the NOW. In the NOW, everything is fine. I am following my own rule, guided from within. I am following the Universe’s plan for me, step by step. Sometimes it’s hella scary because I DON’T KNOW HOW IT ENDS!!!!! But you know what? I also LOOOOOOOOVE that I don’t know how it ends. Life becomes an adventure to be LIVED, not a plan to be carried out.

Life becomes an adventure to be LIVED, not a plan to be carried out.

Me <~ crying again.

Can I let go? Can I not try to be "foolproofly"? Can I just live in the NOW, uncertain, following instead of leading, not knowing what may come next, not knowing how it will end? Can I do that? Let me rephrase that... Can I do that without eating myself into oblivion from the anxiety? Can I do it without the assurance of a caravan, without a partner to feel anchored and safe in and with?

Am I going to be pep talking myself indefinitely about how I can do this? Am I going to wake up with that morning dread?

Have I shared with you that every homeless person I see fills me with fear, recently -- fear because I am giving up a home and belongings and "security" and may end up homeless on the street at some point? Fear that I might be that worn and sun-leathered person with deeply heavy eyes and a heavier walk. Could I become that person? Will that be me someday? What other horrors or hardships might await us?

Is a stick house REALLY that much security, though, really? One of my reasons for wanting out of this one is the lack of security I feel -- the landlord could uproot us at any time (happened before), or something could happen with my rental assistance, and we could lose it unexpectedly. Who knows...

If I were to die in a year, would I be happier that we stayed "safely" in this house, or that we got out on the road and lived our dream? Oh, I am tired of planning, of being told I "have to" plan. I'll show them!

...... So, this post has been written over the course of a few hours (lol), and I just thought of what I think is holding me back even more than my fears about what destiny may have in store for us... It's my own fears concerning my own ineptitude. I trip HARD on pebbles. I get deeply "depressed" and basically nonfunctional. At least, here in this stick house, we have running water and electricity even when I am nonfunctional. Life is kind of on autopilot here. What happens when we are out-and-about in life and I need to hide in my hole and recharge my batteries for days or months at a time (I hybernate during winter)? What happens when some situation makes me want to crawl inside instead of get something done?

Alright, I am beyond tired and pretty convinced that I will regret posting this come tomorrow, but I'm doing it anyway! This post is my invitation to the universe for the answers that I will come to find (probably via Facebook) in the next few weeks. On that note, I leave you, Dear Patient Readers, with this lat bit from that blog post: (eat it up -- it's delicious!)

To be truly, truly free. I guess I have done it. But it seems to be something I need to continually do. It seems to be like a manifestational muscle. But wow, cool stuff happens. Can I believe I am worthy of this life? Can I believe it can “work”? Can I live this way and still thrive? Some part of me knows I can’t live any other way and thrive. I know I am thriving.