“The difference between dreams and reality is action.”
That’s what they say at least. If you ask us we would say it’s work. A lot of work. And tears, and doubt, and fear and regret. But also a lot of excitement; A lot of learning and a lot of fun. Selling all of our stuff has proven both liberating and at times, painfully difficult.
Something we once spent months saving up for was selling for a mere $50, it was heartbreaking. But everything has now turned in to “That’s another tank of gas that can get us another 450 km.” Almost to a fault we found ourselves scrimping for everything. Milk has become a luxury item. Selling has become addictive – this dream will become reality.
Our motivation for this lifestyle is in part due to experiences we have faced in the last couple of months. We decided that we wanted to live, really live. So we decided to complete an obstacle course style race called Tough Mudder. In our training I ended up hurting my knee, tearing my meniscus and leaving me useless to my previous physical job. Not even a week following my injury, Myles got into a car accident that left him with a ton of soft tissue damage and a severe concussion (his fifth one).
This left us, once incredibly outdoorsy people, in the house on the couch and intolerant to light and sound. This quickly turned us both to dark thoughts and on a lonely road to depression. One sunny Saturday we were sitting on the couch, my knee raised with no lights on and our curtains covered and our TV so low it was almost inaudible and we saw our dogs sitting with their heads under our curtains just looking outside.
When we realized how much this was effecting our dogs, how much it was effecting us.
We vowed to take our life back.
After talking about our dreams we bought a hammock so we could lie outside, some dark glasses so Myles could handle the sun and a chuck it for our dogs to run through our yard. We went to physio, the gym and everything else we could think of to regain our strength.
This was it, this was our chance.
We were liberated. We can be anything. All that was left was to decide who we wanted to be. After dozens of long conversations and staying up all night dreaming together we decided that our dream world was one spent traveling and spending our days together, happy and stress free. We wanted to discover ourselves and explore our own backyard.
If we are going to do this, we are all in.
We want to experience all this lifestyle has to offer. With little money in savings we will need to work along the way, berry picking, selling crafts, house sitting, farm work, anything that will help us to keep going. But there is one thing we have agreed on: we vow to use nothing more than paper maps and word of mouth from those we meet to keep us going.
For us, the journey is about getting lost, staying in the forest, trading for goods as much as possible, learning to live off the land. Everything is going to be new, the food we eat, the way we think, the places we sleep. For some, this may be scary, but coming from a state of pure vegetation and not having a reason to get up, it is a more than welcomed adventure.
Our dreams are going to become our reality.
