I had a lot of time to think on the drive into BC this weekend, mostly about the slew of birth, wedding, pregnancy, and new house announcements streaming from my loved ones in my old life.
It really hit me how little I have in common with these people any more. Their milestones are insignificant in my life and they certainly don’t understand mine. There’s no point posting “I got a solar panel!” to Facebook, for example, because they just wouldn’t get how significant that is to my life. My milestones are so different–achieving electrical independence, financing my life on the road without rely on outside work, mastering mountain driving, backing into a tight spot with crunching anything…
For the first 29 years of my life, I felt like an outsider, like the background player on a popular sitcom. I just never belonged with anyone or anywhere and I dreams of traveling and somehow stumbling on my ‘tribe.’ On my Friday afternoon drive, it hit me that this dream came to fruition! I have met people in the last three years I would most likely have never met, much less connected with, in any other context. I have found kindred spirits in Donna and Ken, Sarah, Jody and Gary, Croft and Norma, westerner by choice, Les, the Sands, and a number of other RVers and nomads, the list being too long to enumerate here (and I would be afraid to omit someone!).
These people might not be part of my daily life, but we can come together at any point and pick up where we left off without having to explain our milestones or our choices. We all understand the need to seek the next horizon, to find fulfillment in a foreign sunset, to experience how others live. We might not all live the same way or have the exact same values but we don’t need to explain ourselves to each other. We are a community bound by common understanding rather than roots.
I had no idea on that potluck afternoon of November 4th, 2008 that the neighbour who was just 10 years old than me and her wonderful husband would become such amazing friends, that I would enter their rig like it was mine, babysit their pup, or help myself to a beer before stretching out on their couch.
And I bet Jody had no idea what she was getting into the day she fired off an email inviting me to stay in her and her husband’s back yard this summer! With her and Gary it was ‘right’ from the start. I have always felt welcome and safe in their home, as though we have known each other forever.
We never know who will be the special people in our lives, those who won’t just pass through but rather stick. I miss and love my friends and family from my old life. I am always happy to connect and forever sad that our bond has eroded so much. But I wouldn’t have it any other way. I’m no longer on the outside looking in because I have found my tribe at last.
