I am fully aware that the life we lead is a romantic one. It is partially intentional and partially necessity and happenstance. We love raw experience, we love adventure, but also in order to achieve our dreams we have had to make choices that have pushed our lives even further in the direction of the surreal.
For example, the decision to live two consecutive summers in a van was largely of necessity if we wanted to pursue our goals for the those time periods. Many would have found another way around it, but to us it seemed like the best way to fully accomplish our dreams in spite of our monetary restrictions.
This romantic life has taken us across the vast mid-west, to the mountains of Colorado, to the warm beaches of the Outer Banks, to Central America, up and down the East Coast, and currently landed us in Germany.
These past few years have been filled with once-in-a-lifetime moments. I’ve summited mountains, slept under the stars with waves crashing beneath me, climbed a volcano, drank tea on a roof-top in Nicaragua, run on an abandoned beach alongside a pod of dolphins, walked through courtyards and castles. And I could go on and on. Sometimes I look at my own life and can’t believe it is real.
People always talk about how hard it is to capture these moments–the vibrant sunsets, the towering mountain. But what I find hardest to convey is the other side of this life–what makes it truly romantic and what makes it so different from ordinary life. What makes a moment truly romantic is what sets it apart from the ordinary, from the mundane. It is being alone in the wilderness, walking along a precipice, lost in the vast ocean. It is seclusion, emptiness, fear, suspense, uncertainty, pain, irony–all mixed together with unthinkable beauty.
But as an observer we tend to see all of those as simply a backdrop for the beauty. When you live this life, the backdrop is every bit as real as the foreground.
I was particularly hit by this experience a few months after our move to Germany. Many of our plans had fallen apart since our arrival. Our living expenses were more than we had anticipated, the process of becoming legalized for short-term residency was dragging on, and my job prospects had fallen through. We had an endearing little loft apartment in the city (which we could not afford to heat), but our savings were being rapidly depleted and everything in the future was utterly uncertain.
One night, shortly before Christmas, we found ourselves sitting on some stone stairs beneath the Kaiserberg (the city castle), looking down upon the brightly lit, medieval streets of Nurnberg. It was bitterly cold, but we sat here for hours while Tyler played Christmas carols on his melodica (a small, mouth-blown, keyboard instrument) for spare change. This was our only way of earning money since neither of us could legally work.
Sitting there with Christmas shoppers bustling past, the castle towers glowing overhead, and the music drifting out over the city–as Tyler literally played to earn our Christmas dinner–I knew this was truly one of the most romantic moments of my life. And one of the hardest.
The beauty of it all was overwhelming, and it stood out all the more vividly against our cold, hunger, fears, and uncertainties. I felt like we were living a chapter out of a novel.
This type of experience can’t be recreated.
You can’t recreate desperation.
Experiences like this feel surreal and unattainable for a reason–for most people they are. Most people aren’t really willing to pay this type of price for these kinds of raw, harsh, breath-taking experiences.
It is raw because it is hurts.
And it is beautiful because it is difficult.
Those who choose to live the romantic life know that for every beautiful sunset there is a storm as well–and you are going to find yourself out in the storm with only the memory of the sunset to keep you warm.
And we wouldn’t have it any other way.
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This post inspired by a post on Outside about the reality of the #VanLife.
Snapshots of a Traveler's Life 