Saturday, June 4, 2011

You run and you run to catch up with the sun, but......

When thinking about going full-time, there are several thoughts that enter your mind. Some are obvious like, thinking you might just be crazy. Who in their right mind makes a conscious decision to walk away from normalcy and conformity and into potential instability? You begin to wonder if it just wouldn't be easier to be homeless in a large urban city.

Other thoughts are more rational. You wonder if you are preparing way too soon. When you make a committent to yourself to be on the road in 2013, there seems to be so much time, why bother doing much of anything until...say the summer 0f 2012? Then you fear you might get it all done too soon. Then what will you have to do but wait?

For us, we seriously wonder if we have enough time to get ready emotionally, financially, and socially.
Just like our college days, when we had to finish that 20 page thesis that was assigned 12 and a half weeks earlier, and the night before we are sitting at the computer banging the keyboard to have something to turn in at 8:00 A.M. the next morning. For the most part we have accepted the notion that we have to do something for ourselves. We have spent our lives in education doing for others and providing the foundation for many of our kids to be successful. We have also watched as education has been attacked by politicians, who feed fear to the public, declaring American education is the worse in the world. We are not sure what the true agenda is, but we suspect that there are some who would like nothing more than to see public education eliminated. But that is just our humble opinion. So we have been considering various means for doing for us--where we can control our destiny. After the markets crashed in 2008-2009, we realized it had to be something we could jump into on the run and take off with it. Fortunately, Mary was gravitating towards the travel trailer idea, it was easiy to expand on that and we were able to conceptualize that as our home. So emotionally we are already on the open road.

Financially, it is a bit more frightening. How much money do we really need? We are both under 62 by at least 10 years so social security is not a factor. In fact by the time we are 62, it may still not be a factor. The question becomes what do we need in savings to feel comfortable as we move about the country from job to job. Mary has said we need at least $10K when we roll out of North Carolina in 2013. Our first stop for employment will be Amazon (if all goes as planned) where we hope to work September through December. IF that happens we will have been able to earn enough money to get us to warmer climate and another job from January through April or May. By working 9 months and off 3 months, we will keep our routine we had as teachers. The summer we want to spend doing free-lance stuff like teaching science camps or story telling. So long as we can maintain the $10K in reserves, we believe we will be covered and this will also allow Mary to fly back to Michigan once or twice a year to see the grandkids at Christmas and Easter.

Social preparation will be another tough bone to chew. I do ok without having a group of folks around, but I can also find ways to be part of the crowd. Mary loves meeting people and having others stop by for an occasional cup of coffee or wine as we all share tales of the days events. I am a listener by nature. Mary is a talker. Our thoughts are to find ways that we can both adapt each others strengths, while developing a new network of friends on the road.

If you start too early, it can be frustrating. If you start too late it can be disappointing. Perhaps there is no good time, just the right attitude and a little prayer.

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