This morning’s post is a response to one written by Tioga George yesterday. The post explores the question that those in fixed residences ask of nomads: when are you going to settle down. George’s response was well structured, displaying the pros and cons of both lifestyles, especially in this paragraph:

Everybody on the TiogaRV Team agrees that stick home people are certainly living with less anxiety than us RVing vagabonds. Knowing all about the place where you are living is very calming. The routines that are established for stick home people can be wonderful. Tending a garden, for example.

For me, the hardest part of RVing is the uncertainty of what comes next. And the hardest part of living in a fixed home was the certainty of what comes next. I have discovered that I am a more fulfilled person when I don’t know what comes next because it forces me to be engaged in my life.

As my RVing days march on, I am finding a centred routine to my life that I can slip into the context of where I stop. Unlike George, I can pause somewhere for a few months and be content to discover the community, finding plenty of ‘excitement’ in that, but, like him, I need to move on at some point.

Why? The best answer I can give to that is that I am my best self when I am moving about and forced to go through life with my eyes wide open. I don’t full-time RV because it is an easy life choice, but rather because it makes me feel alive.

I think there are two categories of wanderers. There are those who are displeased with their life and take to wandering in search of that missing piece of themselves. These wanderers are further sub-divided into those who do find what they are missing and those that do not. I used to fit into the former sub-category.

But now I fit in to the category of wanderer that is displeased with her life and takes to wandering because wandering itself is that missing piece.

Can you wander forever?

George concludes his post with the scenario that wanderers fear: having to stop and stay put at some point:

Now comes the question that every RVing vagabond must face, sooner or late! When should vagabonding stop and staying put start? We do not know the answer to that question. However, we suspect that when the time to stop searching for adventure arrives for us, it will be abundantly apparent.

There will almost certainly come a time when I need to hang up my keys. I may not have to give up travel then. But if I have to, for whatever reason, I think I will be able to do so without bitterness. I will be looking back on a life richly lived and be satisfied to rest for a while, savouring the knowledge that I did what I wanted with my life and that I have no regrets.