Adjusting to Life on the Road

This post is rather candid, but I wanted to share it. I have not found it easy to transition from an active, busy, working Mother to a laid-back traveller. After a stressful few years in my job, packing and selling most of our belongings and emptying our rental house, pulling Mali out of school and my husband quitting his job we started the trip exhausted. I was so ready for a life on the road, so I expected the busyness and stress of the last few years to simply wash off. It didn’t…….Here is my journey.

Back on day 4 I could not help thinking about how much there was to do….I needed to become familiar with Mali’s schooling program, ensure the caravan was organised and any unnecessary items tossed, think about future blog posts, observe & monitor our waste, list all the amazing places I want to visit, plan our route. Etc. It was exhausting. I felt as though I may as well be back at work where I felt like this all the time.

We arrived at a campsite alongside Wallis Lake in NSW and Craig did an awesome job of reversing the van into a very difficult spot. Meanwhile Mali was in trouble and sulking under a tree (at least she was not in the way). The van was on such an angle we would have had to strap ourselves in to sleep. We re-hitched several times before we got the van level enough. It was difficult but we succeeded. However, afterwards I began to cry. I thought to myself ‘what have we got ourselves into?’ Have I really got it in me to do this? To be on the move for, at least, a year; to be my daughter’s teacher; to pursue all the personal goals I have for the trip. It became so overwhelming. The next day I took a walk on Bluey’s Beach and after a few minutes of calm, slow breathing I realised how simple the solution was – switch off. That’s it! I needed to stop thinking about what needed to be done, what must be organised, how I was going to get into a healthy routine, what would be in my routine, and on and on. I needed to stop controlling how this was going to go and let myself be guided by the experience. Easier said than done! I needed to let go of expectations and relinquish that personal drive that I always push on myself to get through busy periods in my life. The urgency that comes with that drive does not make anything any easier. It does not speed things up and it surely does not make me feel any better.

The realisation on that beach was comforting but I cannot forget the power of the calm breathing. Slowing both my inbreaths and outbreaths slowed down my sympathetic nervous system (which is always firing on way too many cylinders) and cleared my head to allow the simplest answer to reveal itself. So, the answer was there but how did I go about listening to that wise voice I too often ignore?

It was not easy but here are the key changes that I made:

1. I started rising before Mali in the morning and practicing yoga with a short meditation. This really set me up for a stress-free day. Mali sometimes wakes up when I am halfway through, but she is learning not to interrupt or to simply join me for a few minutes.

2. When I have my morning coffee, I do not put it down somewhere to go and attend to something else. I simply sip my coffee uninterrupted and it is a lovely way to start the day.

3. Craig and I also decided to modified Mali’s Distance Education program as the structure and the workload was not for her. The program was stressful for all of us and was starting to really impact the joy in our trip. We offered to the teacher what we were willing to complete and submit and she agreed. It has created an enormous relief for us all.

4. We ensure we had some down time each day. When travelling with a 5-year-old with no siblings, at times, it can be quite intense. So, we make sure we all get a chance to read or just chill doing whatever we choose - for Mali it is usually Reading Eggs or Mathseeds (or kids YouTube….grrr).

5. We also decided to slow down – we were staying in some locations for only 2 nights. This was just too short a stay considering the pack-up set-up at either end. It wasn’t helping us to slow down which is one of our major aims for the trip. So, 3 night minimum!

6. No pressure for the blog. I decided to write when I felt a surge of inspiration. I just opened my laptop and wrote down whatever came up. If it ended up being worth sharing, I would share it. If not, I would wait until something else came up. The trip isn’t about the blog but the blog is a good way of sharing what we do.

7. In addition, I just allowed myself to relax into the trip and be patient, and I’m still working on it.

So those are my tips for easing into life on the road. It isn’t easy for many of us to simply switch off and given the busy lives we all lead it isn’t surprising.

Happy travels!

Corrine