So why don't we just stay in the house that we bought?
Again the answer is multifaceted.
The easy answer is we plan to move again, probably several times in short succession.
Dallas is planning on applying for Officer Training School. If he gets accepted, we would move to Alabama for a couple months, then probably somewhere else for more training, then maybe to his finally duty station, maybe we'd bounce around even more. Then about two years later, we would get a new duty station and have to move again. Yes, we could get apartments and just move all our stuff around like we have in the past.
Dallas is also going to be getting deployed. Then there is a question of what I should do when he leaves. I can stay in a town that I've only been in for a couple months. or I can go to visit family. It is very important to me that my children have a chance to get to know their extended family as much as possible. Also, having family around gives me, as a mother, a break from being the only caretaker. If we have an apartment or a house somewhere, then when I leave to visit family, we have to be concerned with what happens at the house or apartment while we're gone. We are also still paying for it while we're gone.
Living in an RV means we can move as needed and visit family when we like. But, in reality, the moving is only a part of the whole.
Since we've moved into this house, it has started feeling more and more wrong. I thought, especially after all the moving of the previous year, that once we had a house and settled down then things would be all better. I've found that isn't true. In many ways, I like the house that we have. It's nice to own a home and know that I can decorate it as I please. It's nice to have space for the boys to play. It is nice to be settled after all the moving of last year.
One of the reasons we got this house specifically was the amount of square footage for the price. It's a smidgeon over 1900 square feet. However, much of the space in this house has tended to be wasted space. We have a loft area that rarely gets used. A guest bedroom that only gets used as a laundry depository unless guests are actually here. The boys room only gets used to sleep in as does our master bedroom. The breakfast nook never gets breakfasted in. Really the only rooms that get used regularly are the kitchen, the boys playroom and where ever the computer has ended up. And if I'm on the computer, the boys don't even want to be in their playroom.
I had hoped that once we moved into a neighborhood, we would meet people and make friends with our neighbors. However, we haven't. Part of the problem in our current neighborhood is that a large majority of them speak Spanish, whereas I don't. Also, a number of the houses around us have gone up for rent, which means new people moving in and out. But I think the problem is larger than that. I think that the neighborhoods that I grew up in are largely a thing of the past. There isn't the feeling of friendliness and hospitality, of backyard bar-b-ques that I was hoping for. You wave as you drive by but you don't stop to talk. There aren't front porches to sit on, there are tall walls in the back yards. It's just a very different feeling then I was hoping for.
Then there is the very real desire I have to be as self sufficient as possible. To live a simple life. This house does not lend itself to self-sufficiency or to simplicity. When I mentioned this aspect to my mom, she said that an RV wouldn't necessarily be a great place to these things either. I wouldn't be able to make my own soap or sew or harvest water. But I think, for once, she's wrong. I might have limited space to be able to store supplies for things like soap making. However, if I visit the same places on a regular basis, I could store specific things at specific locations. Like when I visit Tom and Dorothy's property, I could make enough soap for 6 months, until I can return to do it again. When I visit my parents' house, I could work on sewing clothes for the next 6 months. When I visit Paula's house, I could work on setting up the solar power on the RV. I might not be able to do everything in the RV that I want to do, but it need not stop me from doing what I want to do.
There is also a feeling of wanting to get out of the consumerist society. I mentioned before that in all the moving we often had to buy things that we already had, just because we couldn't get to the one that we already owned. In this house, it is so easy to go out and buy, buy, buy even if we don't need anything. I feel that we've gotten too caught up in needing all the coolest gadgets, but we don't appreciate what we have. Everything has become disposable.
After the fire, we decided that rather than get a lot of something, we should just get one good one. Instead of having several cheap TVs we would get one good one that we really liked. Instead of a whole set of pots and pans, we would get a couple that were high quality. I think we started out with good intentions, but we've gotten away from that idea. It's so easy to walk into Wal-mart and come out with too much. And nothing with real value.
If we move into an RV, our space will be severely limited. Everything must have a purpose and a place. We will have to decide what is really important to us and then take care of it. If we have less and buy less, that means we can buy the quality that we want. I would rather support work-at-home-moms, or artisans, or craftsmen who take the time and care to build a good product, rather than buy a product that is mass produced in another country under questionable standards. These items often cost more to be able to pay the maker a decent wage. As Dallas reminds me, each dollar we spend is a vote. I want to vote for quality versus quantity.
So, the RV lifestyle for us is more than just a mobile lifestyle, although that is part of it. We hope that the RV lifestyle will also be a simpler, more self-sufficient lifestyle, more in tune with the kind of lives we want to live.
No comments:
Post a Comment