This may end up being a more emotional entry, so bear with
me, friends.
We have been living in the new home for nearly two months
already. Where has that time gone? we've survived the hottest months of the
year living in a trailer all while either super pregnant, giving birth, or
nursing a newborn. We've bounced from Doheny to Prado to Jurupa to Yucaipa back
to Prado. Our plan was to leave on our adventure of traveling this Thursday,
but wow... is there still a lot to take care of!
We've discovered a lot of loose ends need attending to
before we leave. What with our plan to stay local the way we have until after
the baby was born, we stored a lot of items that we knew we wouldn't need for
the hot summer months before we set out. We now need to sort through our warm
weather clothes already in the trailer and bring in some colder weather clothes
from storage. We're somewhat (well, maybe considerably) ill prepared as
Southern Californians for the types of weather we'll be experiencing out there,
and I'm pretty sure I'll need something more than flip flops for most places
we'll visit. It ought to be interesting learning whether I'll fit in my
pre-pregnancy cold weather clothes with this post-pregnancy body. A trip to
storage is in order; luckily Brent stored those boxes near the front of the
storage unit.
We've discovered a few vehicle maintenance items that need
our attention before we can set off safely. When I was following Brent from
Yucaipa to Prado last weekend, I gasped when a cloud of brown smoke came
wafting out from beneath the driver side tires of the trailer. We pulled over
before hitting the freeway only to discover that we've only had one good trailer
brake this entire time. Of the four tires on the trailer, only one brake had
anything left (and it is very little!) while the other three have been worn
down to the metal. This isn't our doing. It was likely towed with brakes engaged
across the country from the factory to the dealer and then dragged this way
around the dealer lot. We don't trust the dealer to fix this for us, so Brent
is opting to address it himself.
In making small talk with a woman I met in the laundry room
at Jurupa, I learned of her story towing their fifth wheel and experiencing a
blow out. We had experienced a blow out in our other trailer and it resulted in
some damage to the exterior skirting where the tire shredded it from
underneath. Our damage wasn't bad. Her
story involved a terrifying ordeal on a crowded Southern California freeway and
a discovery that no one would help them in the moment despite multiple forms of
road side assistance insurance. Her biggest advice was not to let the tires get
low and to drive slowly. I started paying more attention to our trailer tires
and for four month old tires, they are looking uncomfortably worn and
disturbingly low despite being filled to capacity. Brent studied them more
carefully only to announce that they are made in China. Enough worry over the
inevitable behind us, we decided we would go ahead and replace the tires before
hitting the open road.
We also discovered that the truck was struggling
considerably. It's a hefty workhorse truck: a one ton diesel Chevrolet. All the
same, it was time to research ways to make it more of a Clydesdale over
quarterhorse and Brent upgraded its power train with a Banks system which will
improve our brakes (Jake brake!), towing power, and mileage.
Add to the vehicle chores things like pediatrician visits,
birth certificate acquisition, financial tasks, doctor appointments, and final
visits with friends and family... well, we haven't left the local area yet and
will not be ready to by our initial deadline.
Living local while not technically having a home has been a
bit of a struggle. It's one thing to look forward to seeing the country and
having a new baby. It's another to add the responsibility that comes with the
new baby to living in a trailer and still be stuck local while weighed down
with loose ends and obligations to attend to, all with no technical home base
we normally rely on for stability. We spend our days in the car running errands
spanning the width from Chino to Yucaipa. The dogs are stuck in the trailer for
long days at a time waiting for us or are toted around with us in the car,
waiting in a locked and air conditioned vehicle while we run into one place or
another. With the baby on board now, we're stopping 2-3 times (though we set a
record of 5 times the other day) for nursing pit stops during errands, adding
hours to our time in the car all in all. Going to the grocery store is squeezed
in at odd hours of the night and anything resembling routine is more of a
wistful wish than anything of a reality.
I worry endlessly about Evelyn. She's given up her home with
her yard and all the space that came with it; her friends at school and home;
many of her toys (in storage); her cat (who we agreed was not happy with this
lifestyle); and now her only child status. She is soon to say goodbye to her
cousins and grandparents and she is anticipating this and is immensely sad over
it. We're finding ourselves telling her "no" all the time because
there is more to worry about living in a campground. She can't just go outside
by herself or take off and play; we can't always go with her. We can't always
play with her when he asks us to. She's expressing more anger and becoming more
defiant. She's opting not to talk when I sit down to ask her what's wrong. She's
biting her nails even worse than before and she's added to it more worried and
nervous habits like chewing her hair or her shirt. She worries about Heidi
going to Doggy Heaven someday-- should a 4 year old be this worried over what
more she can lose?? Brent and I fear this was a bad choice for her. I cry a lot
over it.
Whoever said that living this lifestyle is easier and more
carefree was lying. We are always washing dishes, cleaning, or putting things
away. Dog poop has to be picked up immediately. Going outside means latching
dogs to leashes and leads while also juggling kid and baby locations and plans.
Getting ready to go anywhere is a task, digging for clothes now lumped together
in jumbled piles from a closet space we never found time to organize. Getting
online to take care of obligations or to shop for necessities we discover we
need before we leave means taking the laptop from its storage place and digging
out the wireless jet pack and powering it up, as well. Trying to fit in time to
do my hair or put on make up is even more of a challenge than it was in a home
what with sharing one little bathroom and having to tell Evelyn I'm busy as
soon as I sit down to make myself look less tired because she's asking me to
play with her or help her with something again. There is no sitting around in
lawn chairs sipping lemonade and taking in the sights... at least not yet. Will
it ever be that way?
The most emotional part of this situation comes with the
inevitable-- saying goodbye to friends and family. We've sold everything in
California and have uprooted our real estate obligations in this state. We are
about to go see the country. It's likely we'll see places we like more than
where we've always lived. A result of this journey may likely be that we find a
new home elsewhere in the country with nicer people, greener pastures, and
better communities. We may not return to
life as we knew it in California. While this sounds like a wonderful
opportunity for our small family, it's immeasurably sad and immensely
bittersweet that this holding pattern life we're living now is perhaps the last
taste of normalcy we'll have for the life we've always known. We're packing in
visits and sleepovers and trying simply to not think about how significantly
this journey will change our lives and our accessibility to the friends and
family we love here.
We plan to return for Christmas. We're focusing on this to
add an element of comfort to what we're doing. The fact is, though, Kailyn will
be four months old then and Evelyn will be closer to five years old. The family
and friends who have been an active part of Evelyn's life and seen her grow
will not experience the same for Kailyn. We plan to return again in April but
as we're planning the January-April leg of our trip, we're finding we'll be too
far east to get back to California, realistically. Because I need to return in
April for work, it's looking more like it will be just me and Kailyn flying
back at that time... or depending on what we can work out, maybe we won't need
to return at all in April, meaning we won't return to friends and family until
after Kailyn is walking! This is where
it gets to be too much reality...
I told Brent yesterday, "I expected this experience to
be more carefree." And then I wiped more tears away. I'm worn thin right
now. I'm tired, I'm worried, I'm exhausted by my own emotions. Maybe it will
get better once we're finally out of California. Maybe, in other ways, it'll
get worse. Either way, we're committed. We're circling in a holding pattern and
waiting for the runway to clear. The runway always does clear, eventually.
