Two days into renting a camper van, it’s pretty clear van life isn’t for me. I spent the weekend confidently telling everyone at my sister’s 50th birthday party that my partner and I were planning to build one so I can live between LA and Mexico. 

Probably not.

Major respect to people that make van life work. Personally, I can’t stop hitting my head on the ceiling, finding Internet to do our jobs is its own job and although we can cook because it has a fridge, a stove top, a microwave, a sink and a pantry, they just take up space because all we want to do is escape to the sweet, sweet sanctuary of a restaurant. 

I thought having everything in one small, well-designed space would make life easier. But in trying to do everything, it’s doing nothing.

On the heels of the Super Bowl of family time, two weeks into traveling and cohabitating, and now squeezed into a van while on my period, I watched myself contract into someone unrecognizable. Except, I recognize her as who I used to be. Someone living for others at my own expense, while trying to be invisible.

It didn’t work.

Hearing old thoughts bouncing around my brain again is scary. I forget that it’s only temporary, that we can weather these emotions, and that we know exactly why we’re here. This whole trip is about revisiting the past to clear the wounds those thoughts were born from. 

But it’s hard to keep the flame alive in these suffocating environments.

In a much needed session with my coach, I got a message:

Wide. Open. Magic.

She needs breathing room and connection. To herself, to others and to the bigger universe. To remember herself as a carrier of joy, spontaneity, inspiration. To feel her part of nature, emotions flowing, undammed and free.

Thank God I can lie down, diagonally across the mattress, stretch and feel the sun on my face through the tiny window above my head, and remember what I am.