When my husband, Tim, proposed "chucking it all" and leaving our home in Boulder, Colorado to travel the country in a converted bus for a year, I thought he was insane - and as a psychiatrist, I should know. Also a psychiatrist, Tim not only had a busy private practice, but was the medical director of a hospital and completely burned out on his work life. I, on the other hand, was perfectly content - or so I thought. I certainly didn't understand why his unhappiness meant I had to give up everything I was comfortable with for an entire year.
In fact, when he first proposed his harebrained scheme, I demanded to know, "Why can't you be like a normal husband in a midlife crisis and have an affair or buy a Corvette?" I then informed him I would "never EVER" live in a bus.
But, my husband is apparently a much better shrink than I am: It took a couple of years, but he convinced me to do the trip. This was the first time I ever did something so unselfish for someone I loved: I gave up a year of my life (look, that's how I viewed it at the time) just because my husband said he needed me to. Little did I know, it was something I needed, as well.
As we traveled to nearly every state including Alaska, having adventures and misadventures along the way (such as a fire, flood, armed robbery and finding ourselves in a nudist RV park to name just a few), I started to realize that perhaps "comfortable" is not all it's cracked up to be. I hadn't understood how important it is to keep stretching myself, to keep trying new things. A certain spark I hadn't even known was missing suddenly came back into our lives.
I often saw patients in my practice grapple with this very issue: People who are young and just starting their careers or perhaps still continuing in school are constantly challenged and stimulated. Then, at some point - often in their 40s and 50s - they get to where they always wanted to be, but feel like something is missing. They may ask, "Is this what I worked so hard for?" Or, "Is this all there is?"
My husband was certainly asking those questions. During our bus year, I started to, as well.
Here's another lesson I learned: Everyone always says the most important thing is to spend time with the people we love, but I don't think most of us really live this way. Spending 24/7 together in 340 square feet for 365 days with our 60 lb dog and 2 cats, Tim and I discovered we were happier than we've ever been. That's why we recently put our home on the market, and plan to live in the bus, continuing to travel and... who knows what else. (Tim says he wants to try living on a boat and I've recently caught him surfing the internet for sailboat sites. We know nothing about boats. Why can't I have a normal husband who just surfs for porn?) Without a lifestyle to support, we can better support each other, spending more time together, doing what we enjoy.
In this blog I'll write about bus life, as well as some of the things we learned on our life-changing trip. I also hope you'll be interested in getting a peek into a two shrink marriage. Since my book about our year-long adventure, Queen of the Road, was published, I've been calling into book clubs all over the country, and what these women (yes, the clubs are overwhelmingly made up of women) seem most fascinated about is how Tim and I managed not only to survive, but thrive living in such close quarters, spending so much time together for a year.
And, if along the way you get the urge to follow one of your own dreams, even better.
I hope you enjoy the ride!
