This was the end to what ailed me. I made the decision to put my high stress life behind me in exchange for the glamour and excitement of full time travel. Life on the road in an RV. No boss, no 9-5, no tugging at my heart strings and twisting of my gut. Now I could pour my soul into photography and spend my days seeing new sights. I could be creatively free and take care of me, or so I thought.

As the time for take off neared I could feel the taxing effects that full time work and full time prepping was having on my body. I was tired all the time, bloated, and had a general feeling of blah. It was the excitement that I felt every time I researched and worked on the RV, or purged another pile of stuff, that kept me going. I knew that ahead of me was the bliss of mother nature and time to rest.

I threw myself into this new lifestyle with no idea how to manage battery power, condensation, and black tanks. I didn’t know that 24/7 in a 200 sq ft space with my partner of 25 years would be so challenging. The cold, the parking, the money, the water. Things that I took for granted in the past were suddenly issues, big issues. I struggled with freedom verses the reality of everyday life in the RV and I coped just as I had in the past. Nothing changed but the circumstances.

I had intentionally changed my circumstance to become a healthier and more authentic version of myself and instead found the same old me. The next thing I know I am buying bags of candy and baking cookies and drinking that extra glass of wine at night. Together Mitch and I struggled with managing our time to work or exercise on a consistent basis. We bickered more than ever trying to figure out our new roles and responsibilities. This wasn’t the glamorous freedom that I had envisioned.

After 3 months we returned home for the holidays and instead of returning a happy and healthy person, I was sicker than when I left. My immune system suddenly attacked my joints making doing regular activities like brushing my hair or even sleeping difficult. I was scared. I knew that my body was screaming out. Once again I had taken advantage of something without appreciation. My health. It was the wake up call that I hadn’t been answering for years.

Not willing to give up on RVing I had to come face to face with my coping mechanisms and not repeat my patterns of destruction and self sabotage. Failure was not an option. I went full time RVing to live life only I forgot that the life that I set out to live requires me to participate fully. If I want to climb mountains then I need to be hiking hills, and if I want true inner peace and happiness then I need to appreciate all that is good instead of focusing on what is not working.

So maybe it was coincidence that I got so sick after a few months on the road. Or maybe I just handled this new stress with all the same bad habits that I used to handle the old stress and my body just didn’t know the difference. Either way what I do know for sure is that a new life, a new job, a new husband or circumstance will not make life better. Only I can do that.

I am not a victim nor am I lucky. RVing did not make me sick. It was me. My dream life on the road is a response to my hard work and determination as my poor health is a result of my neglect. I know now that burying my head in the sand about any topic does not make it go away but only allows it fester uncared for. So now I’m looking up and straight ahead, and I know that if I want a new healthier and more authentic version of me, then I had better start living it today.