Emotions in planning

Emotions in planning Full Time RVing

Sadness, fear, and uncertainty are some of the emotions we have felt in planning our full time RVing adventure. The emotions are not so much sadness, but fear and uncertainty. What are we doing? Are we crazy? Second thoughts creep in every couple of days, what if this is a mistake? 

These are some of the emotional aspects in planning our full time RVing adventure.


Selling Our Home

Selling your home for any reason can be emotional, but selling your home so you can live in an RV full time is a totally different kind of emotion. Wasn't it our goal in life to buy a house, fix it up (the way we wanted) and live in it until we die? Why in the world would we give up our beautiful house after all the work we have done to it, and all those years of memories. What are we doing? We need to remember all of those memories we have cannot be taken away or forgotten, it is still just a house and our family made it a home.

Fear sets in that selling our house during this economy isn’t the smartest thing to do. I believe we have overcome this fear a little bit by holding off on selling our house for as long as we can. We think the economy might improve enough that we will be ok. Our neighbor passed away a while ago and her house has been for sale for 5 months and there doesn’t seem to be much action on it. Her house has never been updated, it is a very nice house but it’s like going back in time when you go inside the house. Nevertheless it’s a good house for a couple just starting out. This scares us to death, if the housing market doesn’t improve we are going to be in some serious trouble.

We have always counted on the equity in our home and have seen a huge drop in our home value, we can’t just give it away. As I’m writing this post I was surprised, someone bought her house and was moving in this weekend. It is so nice to see, maybe we will be ok. Will we ever get over the pain of selling our home? There is some good news, from what I have heard the emotions will fade, yet the emotions are real nevertheless and shouldn’t be dismissed. 

Letting go of all of our stuff

Getting rid of stuff can be very liberating however, having to get

rid of stuff you love can be very sad. You have to be very selective about what you can take along with you as there isn’t much room in an RV and space is limited. As you are dividing your stuff into piles knowing you will never see it again, emotions can be high. When Laurie sold her Monte Carlo (she called it her baby) and the buyer drove away in “her baby” she was very sad, I could tell reality was setting in and that she was having some second thoughts . She owned her car for the last 12 years and she was very sad to see it go. It’s almost like we have died but “we” have to get rid of all the stuff, as if we are the executors to our own estate. I can understand how this would be a terrible undertaking for children when their parents pass away. At least we know our kids won’t have to go through all of this stuff when we die, that’s somewhat liberating.



Leaving Friends and Family

Telling our friends has been somewhat easy while telling our family has been a little more difficult. The feelings about leaving friends and family has depended largely on how close we are with each individual person, of course the kids are number one, two and three on the list. Leaving the kids really makes us have second thoughts about our decision. We have always had a very close relationship with all of the kids and not seeing them as often will surely be the hardest adjustment. With Alex (23) and on his own and doing well. Alex has always been a very independent kid and not seeing us as often will be ok. Brandon (19) who is just starting out and seems to want to spend more time with his friend than with us anyway. Brienna (16) who lives with her mother, will be going to college after graduating next fall and being the youngest will probably have the most adjusting to do.

As tough as leaving our friends and family can be there are numerous ways for us to keep in touch. Cell phones, emails, Facebook and Skype are just a few ways that we will be able to stay in touch.  In fact, when we are full timing we may have more time to stay in touch with our friends and family than we do now, and the conversations may even be more meaningful, of course the physical interactions will be less frequent. 

Some friends and family think we are crazy, some are happy for us. The ones that are upset often cannot see the benefits of the full time RVing lifestyle because they cannot imagine a lifestyle different than their own. We need to stay focused on why you are going to full time Rving. Not being able to leave friends and family is probably the number one reason more people do not try full time RVing.

Leaving our Town

The emotional aspects involved in leaving our town may not be as emotional or as complicated as leaving our friends and family, but the emotions may be noticed more the next day after we’ve had a great time at the local pub and find ourselves wondering if the friends we meet on the road will be as much fun as those we have made while living here. Or the night we have our last neighborhood bonfire, or seeing the local people that have serviced our vehicles and delivered our mail for the last time. It is a strange feeling knowing the people and places we’ve taken for granted will not be around anymore. The feelings are probably normal but we never really considered how deeply we were entrenched in our community.

I’m sure these emotions will fade once we meet new full time RVing people, and maybe because these emotions fade away is why people don't speak that much about the emotional aspects of full time RVing. Maybe these emotions are so easily forgotten that they seem insignificant, but at this time these emotions are real nevertheless.