Our *final* week as renters in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, has quickly come and is almost gone.  Holy guacamole.  We are moving into the van.  We are moving into the van?  Is the van ready for us?  Are we ready for the van?

We are incredibly excited to start this new chapter as gnomic travelers, but with all of the unknowns ahead, it has been quite easy for us to drop into fear based reactions.  And it is a lil messy.

What is this mess? 

One part naive assumptions, one part confusion, and two parts human sprinkled on top of a janky bar of standards. 

Where did it come from? 

My unreasonably high expectations for us to complete projects in which we had no prior experience, Kyle's short temper --these were literally born from this van build.   Neither of us would have listed those characteristics on personality descriptions in the past!  Okay, crap.  Maybe that was my tendency at work in a few different jobs.  And he always worked with dudes in a store, so I've never seen that side of him.  But now our shadows and our light are colliding in rapid mode.  

I dreamed that our construction design would be the perfect opportunity for us to collaborate and grow closer as a pair, and I was delusional in thinking we would pull it off with smiles on our faces.  Luckily, one of my spiritual sisters in the Yampa Valley calmed me down with her knowing laugh.  "Guess what?  I almost divorced my husband when we built our house.  It's amazing, now that it's complete, but it was really hard.  For months."

Phew, thank god there are other creatures out there who see me and the struggle!  Because the build out has been all consuming.  A stereotypical saying like "he poured his heart and soul into the thing," doesn't even brush the surface of the commitment level Kyle has dedicated.  While I have been hiding behind my crystal mala business and yoga teaching gigs, he's been full send on the WuTangVan.  

Starting in Fall of 2017, we had some real shaky heart to hearts; finances, long term plans, career moves, and other sticky topics of conversation put us both in the hot seats.  We settled on the conclusion that we needed to either buy property and join the cattle herd, or put an investment in ourselves and each other.  My sister-in-law had floated the idea of us moving into an RV, since we were counter culture anyway, and we had laughed it off...but now the prospect seemed pretty idyllic.  So Kyle started browsing used vehicles on the internet.  Checking Craigslist and Ebay once or twice a week turned into two hours minimum a day.  By his birthday in January of 2018, he was convinced that we were going find the perfect model if he just-kept-researching.  We consulted an astrologer who insisted we were on the right path, and we rolled with that momentum for as long as possible.  Until it seemed, just, impossible.  A ride we could enjoy with decent mileage was out there, but seeing Kyle glare at a screen like he was decoding a scrambled puzzle didn't give me faith.

We went back and forth.  Should we build it?  Should we get one already set up?  Wouldn't it be fun to try our hand at it?  Ya!  Start from scratch, get picky, choose every single aspect of the home, know exactly what to do if something goes wrong, and PRESTO: instantly fall deeper in love with life!  Sounds fairly easy, eh?  

Thanks, universe.  Trash my fantasies and throw me a couple lessons along the way, whydontcha.

Winter of 2018 was soggy.  Our poor little Steamboat Mountain Resort suffered from record low snowfall, and our Arbor boards no longer served as our anger management counselors.  The relationship strained as I focused too much in the future, what our new lifestyle would look like, and how transformational it would be, instead of looking for ways to work with Kyle in the moment.  Cue the teachers in my world to remind me to come back to the present day and love myself NOW.  Our routines became slowly more toxic, as Kyle only had eyes for his precious pet project, it seemed, and none for his lady.  Cue the monotonous schedules of go to work, come home, watch depressing comedy news shows, sleep, repeat.  It got boring, fast.  I was all too familiar with the "tough it out" attitude that this seasonal tourist town presents, but I was very resistant while Kyle refused to be anything but content.  

Thank the great spirit we booked a trip to Bali in April of 2018, and took an amazing Clarity Breathwork training with renowned experts on this particular meditation.  Mere days before we left the continent to embark on the journey, Kyle locked in a Ford Transit, and we drove eight hours to pick it up in Utah.  

Have you ever had a moment in your life where panic started digging her fingernails into your subconscious, ripping away all the fibers of confidence you had weaved into the fabric of your self-worth?  Try dumping a lump sum equivalent to two years of rent in a beautiful mountain town apartment into a work truck, which you cannot even enjoy or drive because you're about to visit a brand new hemisphere.  YA. SUCH DOUBT.  MUCH SASS IN THE BRAIN.  But the show must go on.  

Physically removing ourselves from the norm, we were left with each other.  *SO* lucky to have each other.  Of course, distractions were still all around, but we finally had a chance to gaze together.  My hippies had cautioned me that the energy in Bali was potent, and our powers of manifestation would be amplified, but nothing could have prepared me for the passionate highs and lows we floated.  One root canal, a metric ton of vegan food, and some much desired time in the ocean kept us going.  By the time Kyle was packing up to leave Indonesia, our faith in God and one another had been greatly restored.  Even writing that, it sounds like a fairy tale cliche, but I'm going for it.  Because I believe we did the hard freaking work to deserve a storybook ending to our little adventure.  Breathwork Bootcamp brought the trauma to surface.  I sobbed, he found gratitude.  I offered forgiveness, he took a hard look at himself and believed he would be worthy.  We sat through lectures and meditations, worked long hours with a team of facilitators, and danced through Ubud, tasting exotic fruits and giggling at the geckos.  Mother earth was too kind to us, and we embodied the abundance of our destiny.

Fast forward through the epic solo travel I took through New Zealand and Australia (more on that later), and our last month as residents in the 'Boat, and all of a sudden, Bali feels like lifetimes ago.  We are absorbed by packing, cleaning, rearranging, storing, drilling, measuring, lighting, sawing, and all the other verbs.  

So now, I choose the passive one.  I am signing off to sleep.  I am choosing to be proud of us, selecting the blog as my vice instead of a night at a bar, and getting some decent rest before our big day tomorrow.  I've got some private breathwork sessions to conduct, a river to paddle board, and oh, ya, that whole moving thing.

Sending my love to you, dear reader.