Gayle HRj and I just sold our RV.
A quick recap of history. We bought an RV last June. We then took said RV on a six week art show circuit driving from Cape Cod to Rhode Island to Connecticut. Then we hauled this RV across the country to Colorado, did more shows, and then hauled us all back to Portland Maine at the end of August.
That trip was one of the most fun, crazy, stressful learning experiences of our lives! And we’ve had a few!
Anyway, the trip was not as lucrative as we had hoped it would be. If you haven’t yet read about what happened, I invite you to quickly catch up here: How To Recover From a Bad Decision.
Then we drove the RV (which we named The Magic Kingdom) to Florida in January, parked it in an amazing little trailer park in Deerfield, Florida, and lived in it for three months while doing art shows on the Florida Fine Art show circuit.
Then the coronavirus hit. Shows were cancelled. We arranged to keep The Magic Kingdom in our spot in Deerfield, packed our truck, and drove back to Portland.
Like everyone else, our lives changed in the past few months. The fine art shows that make up the majority of Rj’s art business have been cancelled through the end of 2020. We are unsure what 2021 will hold, at least in Florida during January, February and March. So here we are, with a wonderful little ‘home’ in Florida that we have no idea whether we will use again.
Life consistently presents us with challenges to keep us on our toes. And while sometimes those challenges are exciting events, other times they are simply choosing the best of all unfortunate choices.
As we arranged for the sale of our Magic Kingdom this week. When people asked us how we felt about our decision, I found myself answering will full clarity: I am happy for that chapter in my life. But now we start a new one.
Our lives are a series of chapters in a book called life.
Sometimes those chapters are big ones! Graduating high school. Completing college. First ‘real’ job. Marriage. Buying a home. Children (or in our case, plants).
Rj and I have had so many amazing chapters on top of those. A year long backpacking trip around the world. A vacation home on Cape Cod. Two years living in Kauai. Quitting our corporate jobs and starting our own businesses.
I’m not sure the Magic Kingdom was as big of a chapter as those others, but still, our experiences with our cute little RV will hold a space in my life book.
I have found that thinking about life in the context of chapters has been very therapeutic for me. This concept of chapters has allowed me to fully appreciate all the good stuff that happened. But at the same time, I’m able to draw a box around the stuff that maybe wasn’t so great about the experience and allow myself to be sad without carrying on about what went wrong. Or what we did wrong. Or how we should have done things differently. Or darn this pandemic!
As I wrote in my last blog, I’m finding myself able to detach. Detaching by reaching the end of the chapter.
Because there is a whole lot more book to read!
We had fun. We learned a lot. We’ll miss some things about the Magic Kingdom. We won’t miss other things about the Magic Kingdom.
And just like any chapter of a book – this experience will provide us with knowledge that will help build the longer story of life.
Gayle H
