We sold our home for a chance to connect with nature and each other.

Fletcher and I played the "life" game and we thought we were winning: college diploma, fall in love, wedding, tiny starter apartment, stuff apartment with stuff, get pregnant, move to a house, buy more stuff, have another baby, fill that house, basement and garage with more expensive stuff. We were in the process of buying bigger and better when we realized this wasn't the life we really wanted. Our game looked like success but felt like losing. For 8 years of our marriage, it was exciting enough to distract us... it was new. It was full of mystery and hope. We lived it. We loved it. We stuffed it with stuff and then we got bored. Short of buying more of that stuff, there wasn't much to look forward to in our little, overly-cluttered lives.

We hungered for fresh air, new experiences, adventurous detours, and deeper connections but the big house full of stuff kept us in a cycle of rinse and repeat. We spent more time cleaning the house and maintaining the stuff than enjoying it and each other. We knew we had to do something to break the cycle. This is our best attempt to stop the rut and live the life we always wanted. We sold our home and a lot of our stuff, bought an RV, traded the minivan for a jeep, and hit the big open American road. Hopefully, we find the adventure, creativity, messiness, and clarity that our life was missing.  Hopefully, after this next year, we can say, "this is what winning feels like."