Blogging Archives - The Life Nomadic

I haven’t written a blog post in quite some time. Why? I’m not really sure. The easiest explanation is that I’m lazy and I could just leave it at that. However, deep down in my slothful and sluggish heart I know that’s not true.

I just haven’t really known what to say.

My head has been swirling with ideas for blog posts, haikus, and unfamiliar feelings of something, well, unfamiliar. I’ve heard about it, some of my best friends talk about it and they say it’s important. I’ve never had these feelings until now and while peculiar they’re also special feelings.

This is starting to sound like a cringeworthy 1970’s “Your Changing Body” video you might have seen in 7th grade.

So what is it? It’s living in the moment.

I’m an obsessive worrier. I overplan. Worst case scenario is my middle name. I lose sleep over things that might happen and never do. I lose sleep over things that have happened that I cannot change. Just like whistling and eating horse meat, this idea of living in the moment is truly something I thought I could never, ever do.

Yet here I am, with these strange peaceful feelings washing over me, albeit gently. I’ve definitely not reached the tsunami level of inner peace yet.

So how has that impacted the way I feel about writing? It’s strange because the whole purpose of this blog is to share our experiences with family, friends, and readers. But since my last blog post, which was before Christmas, I haven’t written a thing.

But I’ve wanted to.

I wanted to tell you how painful it was to leave Mexico early because of the civil unrest that went down just after the new year.

I wanted to tell you about how crossing the border into Guatemala felt like being kicked out of my family’s home.

I wanted to tell you about how shitty our first night in Guatemala was and how incredible the following three weeks at Lake Atitlan were.

I wanted to tell you about Antigua, how much fun we had there, and the incredible things we ate. Randy’s Sausage, I’m looking at you.

I wanted to tell you about how we got stuck driving in Guatemala City and almost died multiple times, either from a car crash or from one of us killing the other.

I wanted to tell you about crossing the border into Honduras on a sunny Saturday afternoon and how nice it felt to check off another country as we make our way ever southward.

But the truth here is that I didn’t elaborate on any of those things because I wanted to keep them just between Will and I and the people we’ve shared these experiences with. I wanted to be quiet, thoughtful, and let it all sink in.

And even though I’ve resisted with all my might I wanted to… live in the moment.

Our little blog doesn’t have the readership that might make me want to step back and keep things private. After all, I’ve written a pretty graphic post about how to have sex in a camper. I don’t really care about privacy. I know that there are probably a lot of people who haven’t even noticed the radio silence over here at The Life Nomadic. But by keeping some things to myself I’ve come to understand this trip a little bit better which has also allowed me to get a little bit better at handling it.

I’m still a lazy slob but I’ve been able to pay better attention to what’s happening around me, whether it’s inside the camper or out. And I’ve begun to sweep the floor and shake out the rugs more than once a week.

That’s a huge accomplishment. Huge. Truly spectacular.

No two adventures are exactly alike and I know that ours is vastly different from the trips other overlanders take. Work tends to dominate some of our choices and limits others. I used to feel like that was a hindrance more than anything else; I felt like we weren’t truly embracing the nature of this kind of trip.

But now I know differently. Like it or not, this is what our trip looks like. The location changes every few days or weeks but the fact of the matter is pretty simple.

We live in a camper.

We work in a camper.

We’re driving that camper south and doing the best we can along the way.

And while we have missed out on some opportunities and will continue to miss others that’s just the nature of this adventure. It’s ours and, like it or not, we’ll continue to do these things as best we can.

As far as me? This newfound ability (albeit a fledgling one) called living in the moment has given me something pretty special and that something is more moments, little treasures like the one I had last night.

A field full of dancing fireflies, their booties lit up like a gaudy Christmas tree in a frantic, horny display of luminescence.

Come on, I may have found some peace but I haven’t lost the middle school snark. I just wouldn’t be me without it.

Several years ago I had an idea for a blog. This blog would contain nothing but bitching and moaning about all the places I visit. I abandoned that project almost as soon as I came up with it, but it seems as if that long stowed away idea has resurfaced here.

My last few posts have resonated with a lot of people. Why? I think the main reason is because I’ve stopped writing what I think people want to hear and started writing what few travel bloggers do.

The truth.

The truth is that travel isn’t always fun. It doesn’t always change your life. Things will go wrong, sometimes horribly wrong. It’s a messy, confusing, infuriating endeavour at times and I know I’m not the only one that thinks that.

But I am going to be one of the bloggers who writes that.

Travel blogs are everywhere these days. Sometimes it seems that anyone with a passport and some WordPress skills is a travel blogger. My Instagram feed is full of perfectly posed beachside shots full of carefully curated hashtags, one of the most common being #soblessed. I understand this on some level. Those of us who can travel full-time or even part-time are fortunate, but blessed? To me, this implies the benevolence of some deity who has bestowed blessings on you and left someone else out in the cold.

But the other thing that bothers me is that when I visit this #soblessed person’s site I generally find little of substance. There are the same bikini-clad shots found on Instagram, posts titled “5 Ways the Full Moon Party Changed My Life Forever”, or glowing reviews of hotels and restaurants because the PR departments of these establishments paid the blogger to write said glowing review.

But despite this, these blogs that reveal the narcissistic underbelly of this saturated industry, there are some beacons of light. These are blogs written by people who aren’t afraid to show their vulnerability, people who write very helpful and insightful content, and people who write with such passion and skill that I melt in their company.

I’m talking about bloggers like Kate McCulley of Adventurous Kate who truly gives the lowdown on travel as a solo woman and she does so with exquisite prose. If you haven’t read the post about her shipwreck go do so right now. There’s also Jeremy Scott Foster of travelFREAK who recently went public with his critical battle with Lyme disease. And then there’s Bret Love, a man so passionate about what he does and what he stands for that Green Global Travel is a must for anyone who wants to live a more eco-conscious life, whether traveling or not. His recent post on the Rwandan genocide moved me to tears. Talon Windwalker is another truth-teller, and he weaves together his travel and personal stories so well at 1 Dad 1 Kid.

I like reading honesty. I like reading truth. And I’ve now discovered that I like writing it too. Because while we made this travel choice consciously, we had no way of knowing exactly how it would play out. Overlanding and the challenges that come with it are far, far different from a guided tour of Paris or a comped stay at a luxury hotel. Overlanding comes with its own unique set of realities and I want to tell the truth about that.

And the realities of it are very, very raw. Just like the wounds covering my legs after I lost my balance on the steps leading up to Moby’s camper. But that’s another whiny, bitchy story.

I’m not trying to bash anyone here. I understand the fear, risk, and vulnerability that come with putting many aspects of your life online for everyone to see. Few people would say to your face the things they say in a comment box. It’s tough to be, well, tough. And I understand that everyone has the right to blog as they see fit even if I don’t personally like their style.

I’ve also never considered myself to be a #soblessed person. We worked hard to make this journey happen, we work hard every day to keep Moby and each other safe and sound, we work hard at our respective jobs, and I work hard on this blog. #soblessed has absolutely nothing to do with that.

So, I’ve decided to adopt the #notblessed hashtag. I don’t use Twitter that much but if you follow me on Instagram you’ll find it there. And for those of you who were hoping this would be another post about how much I suck at overlanding, stay tuned.

The tale of woe that is me falling off the steps, cracking my skull on the cement, and scraping up both my legs is next in the queue.