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Disclaimer–I love my life. I don't want to change a thing. I get to travel, ride bikes, and explore somewhere new almost every day. I don't have to sit in a cubicle and I almost never have to deal with an excel spread sheet. (Except when I do and then I throw things.) I have very few complaints. However, every now and then I have a conversation with someone who is all "uggggh I'm so jealous, your life sounds so amazing and romantic and I wish I were you." Okay, fair enough, there are romantic moments every now and then, but for some reason whenever anyone says something like this, I am overcome by an urge to throw it back in their face and say "NO, NOT REALLY, SOMETIMES IT SUCKS AND SOMETIMES MY LIFE IS HARD, TOO." I realize this is an immature impulse, probably a product of our society's constant victimhood peddling, but it's also kind of true.
My life IS awesome, because I get to do this all the time. But that doesn't mean it's easy.
Life on the road is not all late-night campfires and beautiful sunsets over the open road. Sometimes it sucks. And Sometimes you contract a mysterious flesh-eating bacterial infection.
Life on the road is not all late-night campfires and beautiful sunsets over the open road. Sometimes it really does suck. Sometimes you're swarmed by gigantic mosquitoes. Sometimes you can't get some important document because you have no stable mailing address and such-and-such bureaucracy will not pay attention to your constant address change requests. Sometimes you're just tired and hungry and grumpy and totally OVER cold showers and eating breakfast in the rain (see photo).
Eating breakfast in the rain under the insufficient cover of some bushes. Awesome!
Oh, and sometimes you contract a mysterious flesh-eating bacterial infection and don't get it attended to until it gets so bad that you begin to worry that your leg might be about to fall off so you have your boyfriend drive you an hour and a half in the middle of the night to the closest open emergency care facility, which (obviously) is not that close at all.
So yeah, that happened. And fine, flesh-eating might be a minor exaggeration, but I did, it turned out, have a pretty healthy and potentially antibiotic resistant staph infection. FUN TIMES, PEOPLE.
At the risk of providing too much information, I will just tell you that my left leg developed a series of unpleasant, red pustules and then swelled up to twice it's normal size. I also had a fever and all sorts of other alarming side-effects that prompted our late night journey to the ER. The doctors didn't seem to think I was in imminent danger of amputation (but can you blame me for freaking out?!?!), but they did put me on a cocktail of antibiotics and drained my wounds (sorry sorry gross I know). I won't, however, post a picture because, frankly, I don't need to add to the reasons why google-image searching "staph infection" is a terrible idea.
Early mornings on the road.
I felt somewhat better the next day, as I no longer thought I was in imminent danger of losing my leg and that obviously puts a person in better spirits. However, I still had a fever and was largely incapable of doing anything. I spent the entire day flopped in the back of van while the others rode their bikes, shivering and sweating and doing the only thing my addled brain was capable of -- mumbling my way through the Duolingo Italian lesson on animals. Luckily no native Italian speakers happened by or they probably would have been somewhat alarmed by the glassy-eyed, gauze-encrusted creature curled into a fetal position and muttering, over and over again, "the horse eats the apple, the monkey drinks the water."
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And while I won't post a picture of my un-bandaged wound, I do feel like I owe you this -- the unsexiest picture of me to ever make it onto the internet...in the height of pathetic, the night we cracked and finally got a hotel room because I was just done with coping. I was trying to look positive for this photo (happy MRSA day!), but instead I just looked like a sick puppy.
I'm usually better-looking than this, honest.
Throughout this entire experience, I just kept thinking how much I wanted things to be easier. I wanted chicken soup. I wanted functional internet. I wanted my own bed. I wanted more than three dollars of disposable income.
I think the main reason I get irritated when people romanticize my life is not because my life secretly sucks. On the contrary, my life is almost always awesome. Last week it happened to suck, but don't we all have sucky days? Don't we all contract the casual case of flesh-eating bacteria once in a while? No? Okay, guess that's just me.
No, the main reason I get irritated is because this assumption is the conversational equivalent of erecting a big, stone wall. Recently, I've realized that the average person doesn't want to hear about the the day-to-day struggles of those of us with unconventional "career" paths. (The exceptions, of course, are you lovely people who actually read my blog, bless yer hearts.) Most people want to assume that if you've managed to work out a lifestyle that doesn't involve an office or a 9-5 or hating your job, that you have achieved the unachievable, that you are unbelievably privileged and your life is all stars and roses and midnight campfires. People don't want to think that you're anything like them, because then they could be doing what you're doing, and they're not. The truth, at least for me, is that I'm almost always broke and I spend most nights in a van or a tent. The truth is that my lifestyle is a choice, and one that has come at what is, for many people, an unfathomable sacrifice. The truth is that I'm a normal person, just one who would rather camp with a staph infection than give up one iota of freedom. (Not recommending camping with a staph infection. Horrible idea.)
A wet, but beautiful, campsite in Crested Butte, CO. Photo: Sean Leader
If you want to live on the road, prepare to eat sandwiches for dinner and to sometimes be cold and wet and miserable. Prepare to be sick and very far away from a warm bed. Prepare to be kicked out of your campsite by a park ranger at least once. Prepare to be tired and frustrated and elated all at the same time. Prepare to cry every time you have to deal with a multinational company because the person on the other side of the phone will not understand that you don't have a stable mailing address. Prepare for your phone battery to die at the most inopportune of times. Prepare to feel guilty when you buy a beer because you know your bank account can't handle that kind of extravagance. But most of all, prepare for the moment when all of these things happen in one day and then some stranger tells you how "jealous" they are of your "romantic life." Prepare to smile and say thank you, because in that moment you will know that, no matter what, you wouldn't have it any other way.
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Greta Matos
August 22nd, 2015
Great post Syd! I can relate in so many ways- after my husband and I left our very conventionally successful and stable life in San Francisco, sold most of our belongings and moved to Chile on a one-way ticket with only our surf, climbing and camping gear and plans to buy a car and live in a tent, I got the “wow you are so lucky” response all the time. Absolutely I love my life and believe I have had so much luck to see so much beauty and do so much of what I love, but the decision to embrace life this way does mean you make sacrifices, just as you do with any other lifestyle. People always want to romanticize what you are doing so that they can hide behind the “I could never do that”, which totally takes them off the hook from actually pursuing the life they love.
At the beginning of the year I got shingles while we were living in our tent- ugh was that horrible. Four weeks straight of the absolute worst nerve pain (not to mention oozing sores all over my body- gross) I had ever experienced and all I had was my damn Thermarest to draw comfort from. At the end of the day, I wouldn’t trade the freedom I have for the boundaries I had to live within before, but man aw man that doesn’t make the comfort of a cozy bed, hot shower and refrigerator full of fresh food any less desirable. Cheers to your adventures and your life, the tough stuff and the stuff that is so damn beautiful you feel like your heart could explode with gratitude!
Sergio Braziel
November 15th, 2022
There are romantic moments every https://gas-stationsnearme.com/diesel
now and then, but for some reason whenever anyone says something like this, I am overcome by an urge to throw it back in their face and say.