Happy New Year! | RV Life

Thank you, 2023, and a past that led me to my present

I woke up feeling blessed and grateful for 2023. It was a banner year, and I am living my best life. I took a break between Christmas and New Year’s, did nothing, and now I’m refreshed and excited to start working on changes and new projects for 2024.

I reflected on how I got to this point in my life. A life that felt like it was a dream that wouldn’t come to fruition. After years of trying and failing to accomplish a lifestyle where I felt comfortable, I had to stop fighting for the simple life that I wanted and took the leap. I am the happiest I have been in many, many years. For one, I spent Christmas day with all three children AND my granddaughter. First Christmas with her in four years. My heart was full of love. IT WAS AMAZING.

Yesterday, I wrote in my journal that has a few blank pages left, so I started reading from the beginning I started in January 2017. Seven years to fill a journal? Yeah, I haven’t been very good with journaling. In 2024, that will change. The path to my dream life began in 2017. I fell off the cliff a few times, as life does, and made new plans to work my way back to where I wanted to be. Reading my past writings was an exciting walk through memory lane. Great moments, like the year I learned I would be a grandmother. For the first time, I purchased a car on my own from my income, my name, and also a home that I loved in a town I had always wanted to live. I had my eye on that place for a few years, and when it came on the market, I went into negotiation mode. So, so moments when I worked in an office job that made me insane but gave me the platform to take control of my life and my finances. Some heartbreaking moments with my children, life moments that happen when you are in adulthood, and as a momma bear, I could not control or fix. Keeping my mouth shut and out of the situations was hard! Oh my, it was hard.

I read through moments and saw repeat patterns like it was deja vu. I did a little eye roll with myself. But, there was one line I continued to write – I want to live a life of full-time travel. It was a continuous line in my writing. Wrote it out to the universe over and over for seven years, and finally, it happened. Never give up!

I was constantly changing lanes to what I thought was the right path and realizing no it wasn’t. I went back and forth just trying to find my comfort zone that was disheartening at times and I thought, “Okay, that didn’t work, let’s get on the right track again.”

I turned down some great opportunities, that at that moment, felt right but going through the motions I wasn’t comfortable with myself or the situations and realized they were not the right path for me. Upsetting to people who were involved, and I am sorry. I didn’t handle those well. Maybe not the right way, but I didn’t know how to handle them the right way. Now, I just don’t do anything I don’t want to do. Life is lived on my terms. I don’t go the path that others think I should go. It has taken a very long time to get to this mindset. One thing in my writings I discovered about myself that I was seeing the life others lived and thought, Oh, I want that. It works for them it should work for me. And that’s wrong. Following the path of others doesn’t work for me, it works for them. You have to follow your own path – no matter how good or bad at it you might be. I mantra I wrote: I don’t want to be like you, I like me much better. (I don’t care if that is not the correct grammer . It is just a mantra.)

This past travel season I didn’t write in my journal but maybe two, or three times. I was busy enjoying the moment so much I didn’t stop to write anything down. I photographed our travels instead. A LOT of photos, so many I haven’t shared. I am still working on putting them together for future stories. Reflecting back on 2023 and reading through the past seven years I feel grounded and in control.

This new year is a new chapter of adventures and new places to visit. We spent the first year on the road kind of helter-skelter with no real plan. Just wandering around. This next season I have started to plan out. Although I have two different ways we want to go. One for this season and the second for the following year. I think I have decided which one for this season and, this particular route is quite popular so I’ll have to make plans and reservations well in advance this time. Hey, it’s evolving and changing. Try something different and see how it works. Right?

Thanks for stopping by for a read. I appreciate you so much. I hope you like and subscribe to follow along on our adventures this new year.