March 1, 2017
“Getting Real” could mean a lot of things. This post is about emotions and feelings. YUCK! We are about 9 days from closing on our home, and 28 days until we close on our 2nd home, which will be our D-day. The majority of people we share our upcoming plans with are excited, envious, wish they would be able to do it, or if they are currently full-time RVing, wish they would have started at our age. After almost 9 months of research we have realized how many younger people are leaving their 9-5 jobs, and going full time in an RV. That doesn’t mean you have a bunch of homeless, money begging people out there. The jobs available for “us” are vast, lucrative and easy to find. The opportunities are amazing. We have to say, when we first started tossing around the idea of doing this, we thought “oh boy, so we are going to travel in an RV where the average age of our peers is 112.” (Kidding of course baby boomers!) VERY much not the case! We are astounded at the whole “tiny house, big living” that is sweeping our nation. Families. Young adults. Middle age people. With and without kids. Large and small families. And yes, retired age people. Who, by the way, offer an amazing amount of knowledge!
But … then there are others who think we are making a big mistake, and have laid out all the reasons why we shouldn’t do this. Even going so far as using scare tactics in a way. Explaining we are crazy for what we are doing. They don’t understand. They don’t try to understand. And don’t take the time to really listen. Everyone makes their own choices. Their own mistakes. Has their own challenges, and reasons for doing whatever it is they are doing. For us, living in a sticks and bricks house that we work so hard to keep and we never get to spend time enjoying it, just isn’t for us. We tried to fit into this life style. Justin and Stacy have done everything from day one backwards. That is not something the ones who think we are crazy really understand. They got their alone time in the beginning with their spouse. Stacy came to our relationship 27 years ago, towing a beautiful little 3-year-old. And from day one, we were a family. We have spent the last 27 years raising and supporting our 2 daughters. Softball games, volleyball games, dance, gymnastics and moving from place to place with the military. Together. Just the two of us. We are so fortunate to really consider each other our best friends. Everything we have done, we have done together. Due to family not living close most of the time, we could only rely on each other. When Stacy needed emergency eye surgery in Germany, Justin was called out of his command to come take care of our 2-year-old. We have never had the luxury of family being around. There was no other options. We never complained. We were never bitter. This is what parents do. They rely on each other to take care of their children. We realized in the last 7-8 years that military families are not like typical ordinary families and typical ordinary families will just never quite get it. They try. They say they do but that’s impossible. We never expected people to understand, but we hoped for recognition that we lived different. We didn’t live in their molded world.
We do hope through our adventures, excitement, mistakes, and mishaps, that we are just celebrated for what we have done, and accomplished. We fully support people who choose to live in a standard home, and work standard jobs. Please love and support our decision to not. We are choosing to “opt out of normal”.
