Why we are choosing van life over work life.
It’s pretty simple, really: we are exhausted.
Why are we exhausted? It’s much more than the regular grind of daily work and adult responsibilities. It’s the accumulated stress of the past seven years which have led us to this point. Without going into too many gritty details, both Dan and I went through painful break-ups in 2012, his here in New Zealand and mine over in Taiwan.
I then moved back to NZ, with my carefully crafted life in tatters, and I promptly launched into putting it all back together. I had to find a job which would allow me to buy a small house so that my dog could get out of kennels, and I could just have some space to breathe again and gather my thoughts on getting divorced at 30.
While I was attempting to pull off this minor feat, I met Dan. Neither of us were ready for a new relationship, but it just clicked so well that we decided to throw caution to the breeze and place a bet on happiness. With this developing steadily in the background, I got the job, found a house, got the dog out of kennels, and introduced my dog to my new boyfriend. Phew. Now to just chug along, right?
Wrong.
In the intervening years since “sorting my life out” in May 2013, between us Dan and I have experienced the following:
being made redundant
moving house twice
a family legal battle over finances
getting married
a change of career
a health collapse
major surgery
loss of fertility
working in a department going through mediation (which failed)
a change of workplace
a meth contamination (not of our own making)
a close friend dying
a baby we were going to adopt being aborted at 22 weeks
being harassed and stalked online
interpersonal conflict in the workplace.
So, yeah. There’s been a few things going on - and not all of them were bad (marrying Dan was the best decision I have ever made), but all of them created some level of stress. And, despite our best efforts to just push on through and make like everything is fine, we have come to a point where we can’t keep going without risking either our mental or physical health. Or both.
As a result, we have decided to give ourselves permission to take time off, be gentle with ourselves, and to just recuperate for a year. The plan is to travel around this beautiful country of New Zealand for a year, starting on December 20, 2019, in our camper van, Arti. We will do casual work along the way to keep us going, but we will work to live, not live to work.
It’s a complete and total change of pace and mindset, but one we are extremely excited about. We hope you all enjoy coming along with us as we explore all that Aotearoa has to offer. Come adventure with us!
