Life Changes

Where to start? My life has changed a lot over the past week. I suspect for the better, but amongst the excitement of starting a new chapter in life and the disappointment of how the last one ended, it’s difficult to see things with perfect clarity. Last week I was in a relationship neither of us were happy with, preparing to close on a new house, and up to my ears in the politics of a job I was very frustrated with. Today I am sitting at home on a Monday calling auto dealers inquiring about vans, and listing things for sale on craigslist. I won’t dive into all the details, but the culmination of the frustration at work was getting fired for the first time in my life. This was a surprising outcome, but not entirely unexpected. It struck me as odd how down I felt, even when I knew it was basically self-induced.

This job was much more than just a job for me. It was a startup to which I had been giving my absolute all for the past year and a half. After talking about a new exciting venture with a good friend while mountain biking during a summer filled with adventure, I got involved to feel out whether the company was something I was interested in. It turned out to be a pretty good fit and I quickly became a key member of the team, settling in as Director of Engineering.

After countless late nights developing the technology and giving everything we had to successfully deliver on projects, we had not yet achieved the success we had hoped for and the company was headed in a direction many of us didn’t agree with. A few of us ended up deciding that a change needed to be made, or we did not want to continue working there. I was probably too open and trusting in the mutiny effort, and in the end that’s how the cards played out – I was fired, and two other key members of the team are no longer there either. It’s disappointing that it ended up playing out how it did, as we had a great team of people who believed in and were truly committed to the cause. At the moment, however, I’m very thankful that I’m one step further from ending up another 10 years older without having taken the opportunity to shape my life the way I want.

While all the work drama was playing out, I was also in the middle of taking a serious look at the relationship I was in. We’d been together a couple years, but that spark from when we had started dating just wasn’t there anymore and neither of us wanted to continue with things the way they were. I’d spent a while thinking about why this was and what to do about it, and had ended at the conclusion that I really needed some extended time to myself to figure out what I want out of life and what will make me happy. It was thus pretty obvious to me what the decision was after losing my job, although that doesn’t mean it was any easier.

Needless to say, at the end of last week I no longer wanted to buy a house (that I didn’t really like that much anyway) close to the job and girlfriend I no longer had. Luckily if you lose your job you also lose your financing, and since that was one of the few contingencies I had I was able to get out of the purchase and keep my earnest money. That left me with my current house that I’m essentially done renovating, and very little in the way of other obligations. In other words… FREEDOM! The choice of what to do next was pretty obvious to me – in fact I think it’s where my mind went about 10 seconds after I read the words “your employment has been terminated”.

For the past few years I’ve been itching to get away from the monotony of the standard work cycle and do something different with my life. In some regard I’ve already done this, working a part time job for over a year while continuing to plod along on my house renovation and fitting in some adventures – see Lake Michigan Bike Tour. What I’ve really wanted though is to travel for an extended period of time and have the luxury to spend more than a day or two visiting the places I go. Somewhere along the way I started looking at campervans, and set my mind on building out a custom Sprinter campervan to live in for a while and explore the country.

There’s always been a pretty good excuse not to follow this dream, and I’ve begrudgingly watched that vision slip away as this past job turned more serious. Over this past New Year’s, I took a road trip to Florida and New Orleans, and had some (very limited) time to explore along the way. I decided on that trip that I didn’t need to wait until I could travel full time to build my campervan, and that I could start enjoying it right away with smaller trips like the one I was on. I committed myself to going ahead with the project… just as soon as I finished my house and moved closer to work.

Fast forward a few months and I wasn’t any further along than when I had first decided to go for it. Admittedly though, I was forcing myself to finish the things I had in progress before jumping into a new project. As of last Thursday, however, I find myself in a position where there is only one of those projects left (the house renovation), and I suddenly have adequate time to finish it very quickly. So, it’s now full steam ahead with building my next (mobile) house!

The past few days have been a whirlwind of research and playing with van layouts in SolidWorks – my 3D modeling program of choice. I’m pretty set on what I want for a van, and my goal is to purchase one this week. That this long-simmering plan is finally becoming a reality is incredibly exciting, but quite scary at the same time. Going from a full-time job and a house that I’ve somehow been living in for 4 years (albeit on and off a bit) to a measly 60 square feet to call home will be quite an adjustment. I’m a bit trepidatious about traveling alone as well. I’ve done some solo trips in the past, and while I enjoyed them, I think doing it for an extended period may get lonely.

When I first started envisioning this lifestyle though, one of the things I wanted to do was visit all the friends and family who are now spread out across the country. Hopefully having periodic visits with familiar faces will help ease the strain of traveling solo. I’m also designing in a storage locker that will double as a (very small) guest bed. Hopefully I can convince a few friends with more flexible schedules to join for segments. So – those of you who are interested in hitting the road for a while, or just have an extra parking space, get in touch!

My goal is to get this van built out as soon as possible so that I can get out and enjoy as much of this summer as I can. That, and finish / sell a house, then pare down my belongings and put what I’m not taking in the van into storage. At least I won’t be bored.