Mobile Family Unit Day 1

Of course, the Mobile Family really began a few months ago, when Mr. Go finally got through to me when talking about this idea. “He has good ideas sometimes, and I should really listen to him.™”

Here’s the plan: Rent out our CO home on Airbnb and buy a home in AR, where Mr. Go is working for the next 6-12 months. Live light—camping style—so that moving back home (or wherever the wind takes us next) will be a breeze.

Step one was to quit my job. I told my friends, “I’m off work until June 25^th we should hang out!” HA! I had no idea how much startup work this would be. And I wouldn’t realize it until the week of the move. Luckily Mr. Go was able to work from home that last week and help me out. And thank goodness we kept our nanny on for the last month to help me out while I was working on getting the house ready for renting. (I have so much to say about it that Airbnb will be a whole separate post.)

I think Mr. Go may have overestimated the space we had in our Subaru Impreza, because while packing I heard a lot of “if we have space, we’ll bring that.” I started out packing so conservatively. Two jeans, a couple tank tops, a T-shirt, shorts, some underwear, socks and a bra. Bam. Done. Then, while packing away the rest of my closet (how did I get so much stuff??) I kept throwing things in my duffle. “I’ll need that!” Even Mr. Go asked a few times, “Don’t you want to bring that?” To which I always said of course.

So Subey is packed to the gills. I have a diaper bag and a cooler under my feet and a purse on my lap. It probably won’t be the most comfortable drive but I’ve been dead on my feet for the past two days so I don’t think falling asleep will be a problem.

Doing something so vastly different from your norm is always so exciting. Why don’t we do it all the time? I never was good at pushing my own boundaries, that’s why I keep Mr. Go, even if I resist him at times. Maybe I should set an alarm on my phone for every six months so I'll be reminded to Do Something Different.

The whole point of this exercise is to spend more time together. Being away from Babs every week was killing him. But, in the process of trying to all be together again, we’ve also learned a lot about the nature of possessions and the American Way of “More is Better.” All of my clothes barely fit into our not-insubstantial crawlspace. Do I really need that many clothes? Do I really need that many shoes? No. But it’s hard to break the mentality of “Having more means you are doing better.” We’re working toward valuing experience and time rather than possessions and have already realized it’s easier as a concept than it is in practice. Being addicted to things is as real as being addicted to sugar or like, meth or whatever.

But the journey of a thousand miles begins with one step—or something like that.

So here we go!