Home Sweet Home

When we decided to go on the road, people had a lot of questions concerning what we might miss:

“Won’t you miss your house? Your yard? Your two-car garage?”

“Will you miss your regular grocery store? Your neighborhood park? Visiting the same places every season?”

“Your playroom? Big kitchen? Space for a proper Christmas tree?”

But it turns out we don’t really miss any of those things (ok, I do miss our dishwasher on occasion).

What we really miss living on the road is the amazing community we had in Washington, and especially our friends turned family.

When we said goodbye to our best friends, the ones we had dinner with every week for years, went on camping trips with and planned several playdates a week with for the boys’ whole childhood, we all cried. Ok,”cried” might be an understatement. Sobbed may be a more accurate description.

So every year we go back up to Washington, yes to visit the dentist and doctor, but mostly to see our friends turned family.

We miss living just 15 minutes away from them but one of the coolest parts of living in an RV is that we can park it wherever we want.

Including their pasture.

For our last week in Washington, we didn’t just spend a lot of time with our friends.

We brought our home to their home.

We had dinner together every night, pulling ingredients from each of our kitchens to pull together some truly spectacular meals (mostly thanks to E).

We set up a “water park” in the backyard, complete with a water slide/slip and slide combo and dinosaur sprinkler trampoline situation.

We stayed up late chatting on the deck after all the kids were asleep in their own beds.

There were early morning walks together and coffee on the deck.

When one of us had the idea to go to the lake at 4:30 pm, we could all hop in the car 15 minutes later and be on our way.

We didn’t have to coordinate back and forth via text to decide on a plan, strategizing over who would drive farther this time.

We could spend all our energy on quality time together, the type of time that we didn’t always get when we lived in the same place but needed to go back to separate homes for kid bedtimes.

It’s the kind of hyper concentrated time you get while traveling together but with the convenience of both families being in their own homes.

In some ways, going on the road has made our relationship even closer.

We don’t see each other as often, but when we do, it’s the main event.

And maybe that’s the real trade we made. We gave up proximity for intention.

I used to think community meant living down the street from your people.

Now I think it might just mean building your life so you keep showing up for them, however far the drive.