It’s 9am on a beautiful Friday morning. The breeze is low and crisp, the birds are chirping, and there is a sense of peace in me I haven’t felt in a really long time. I’m sitting on a shaded porch, somehow still stuck in New Mexico, drinking coffee and crying on a somewhat stranger’s patio. No, I wasn’t kidnapped. Instead, I’ve been living my new life, meeting people, making memories, getting out of my comfort zone and having real experiences. I’ve made friends out here and met like minded people, something I struggled with for years in Vegas. I guess you could say I’m actually accomplishing the one thing I set out to do which was change, not just simple geography but who I am and how I perceive the world. I’ve been doing all the things and having all the feelings, so why am I sitting here acting like a little bitch you ask? Well this morning I’m having a very different sort of reaction to my new life and it’s sadness. Add longing. Mix in some regret. Sitting in this perfect solitude on this peaceful morning in this beautiful place reminds me of my old backyard, my old tranquility, and my old life, and it just makes me so fucking sad.

The last 24 hours in this house have brought on a lot of feelings I thought I’d moved past. My life is a mix of excited spontaneity and also unforseeable chaos. Two days ago I was flying down the highway with not a care in the world, wind in my face and tunes blasting from the open windows; today I’m reminiscing about how much I risked and what I’ve lost in this grand scheme to find myself and my rightful place in the world. I used to sit on my own patio, pour over my website, and daydream about the tomorrow that I’m living right now. How funny to think I’ve accomplished everything I wanted but am still plagued by the ghost of Bitter Bitch past. While it’s only been three weeks since I got to New Mexico and a total of two months on the road, it certainly feels like longer, a lifetime ago since I was “home”. And as I get further and further away from my old life, the more and more I long for it.

Everyone thinks the idea of selling everything and going on an adventure sounds so fun but it’s not just the material things that you think are tying you down; they’re also your anchors, your lifelines, you’re support structures. I’ve talked before about how attached I was to my old home but it wasn’t until I was sitting here in this house, looking at someone younger, someone who’s accomplished all the same things as me, that I finally realize everything I’ve actually given up and the fact that I have nothing to show for any of it. Not just a lifetime of collections, all my worldly possessions, but my sense of purpose and place. To know that I’d come so far then essentially threw it away is really hard and while most fulltime RVers tell you its amazing and they’d never go back, my personal experience, right now on this outdoor couch as I spill salty tears in my hazelnut coffee, is that it was a big fucking mistake and if I could go back in time, I’d literally give anything to do it all different.

When people think about RV life, they think freedom, travel, the open road. No more daily grind, catch me if you can, a rambling man lifestyle. What no one talks about is the exchange of our security and daily comfort. I have no patio, no privacy, no space for Cutie to call her own. I have to flip a switch just to have a running faucet. I spend most days washing my hands and dishes with cold water because it takes the time and forethought to turn a water heater on. I smell like gas, or diesel, or shit most days. If you’re not hot and sweating, you’re freezing fucking cold; there’s no such thing as insulation. Everything is always dirty, all the time, and you can hear noises outside like they were whispering soft nothings in your ear. You’re alone and isolated yet surrounded by strangers. Everyone you meet thinks you’re homeless. I wanted to escape a life I hated so much that I traded it for one I could never comprehend. I wanted freedom but now I’m simply a slave to something else entirely. I exchanged a broken water heater for blown out tires and check engine lights. I’ve traded HOA dues and yard work for busted slides and cracked caulking. I thought home ownership was a drag until it became a 12,000 pound traveling responsibility that shakes, shudders, and loosens with every mile.

Some days are ok, some are amazing and freeing, and some are bittersweet and sad. Out on the road, enveloped in my own daily bullshit, I don’t have the time to reminisce about what I’ve lost because I’m desperately trying to stay afloat, find a balance between my fledgling career and my rolling nuisance, and just basically survive. But here, on this patio that looks so much like the one I left behind, those feelings are as raw as the day I drove away and the grief just as fresh. I can only hope that this journey brings me everything I always felt eluded me: professional success, stability, happiness, love, because this time I bet against the house. I gambled with my life, my money, my future. If you’ve ever played roulette then you know that feeling when you’re down and you put it all on red. You have nothing left to lose and everything to gain. The last bets are laid and as the wheel spins wildly, that little ball bounces from slot to slot, bounce, bounce, bounce and then it’s done. Just like that, the game is over.