With law school graduation and all its associated deadlines and to-dos approaching at an alarmingly rapid pace, I thought now would be the perfect time to divert all my focus to converting a van to a camper. Instead of working on writing one of the three substantial papers I have due within the next month I found myself on craiglist searching for the perfect van to overhaul and call home. Which, by the way, I found (update below). An afternoon of dreaming about the logistics and I had pretty much figured it all out. One thing lead to another and I found myself researching DIY compost toilets for vans as my partner arrived home from work.
Without even seeing her face, I realized I had drifted from our reality. Let’s quickly in a Bob Ross fashion paint a picture of what that is at the moment: living off part-time incomes and I guess a dream because we always manage to stay on top of finances, the freedom that dual full-time students in demanding programs enjoy (law and nursing–hint, we have none), adult responsibilities, and don’t forget–my looming 100,000+ student debt. Cool right? Hold up. There’s more. We are 31 & 32, planning to spend all the days together, including the eventual engagement, wedding, and having children. We’ll get there. Right? IOU all of that, babe. Yes, we will do things our way. Sure, women are waiting until later in life to have children. Right, we do have the benefit of having two uteruses? uterii?, fuck it, wombs to chose the least baron by the time we get around to it. However, play time is not exactly of the essence. Yet, in my mind I can always figure out a way. In her mind, she’s a responsible adult fearing that I’m going to attempt to follow through with one of these plans giving us no other option but to live out of a van.
Do I repress the dreaming? Hell no. First thing out of my mouth, “D you have got to come see this cool van I found on craigslist. It’s just begging for a revamp.” She casually set her bazillion bags down and tried to give me a stern, “again?” look. Little does she know, that never works. She stands a towering 5’0″ tall to my 5’10” and everything she does looks adorable. My rebuttal? “It’s not impossible…” followed by spitting out all of my rationale I had concocted that afternoon and ending with batting my eyes. I even showed her the badass van that had a paintbrush and rainbow painted on the side of it. The beast was under $3,000 (no, we don’t even have that) with 77,000 miles. 77,000! Her response, “it’s not practical.” My response? “Practial schmatical” and intense pouting.
I won’t say she’s right, but she isn’t wrong. I get caught up in the moment, but then I’m missing out on the moment that is right now. After 3 grueling years, I am graduating in about a month. Following that, I am beginning a bar prep course and then taking the July 2016 bar exam. Amidst all of this, I am job hunting. Not for any job, but for THE job… I just don’t know what that is yet. That should be adventure enough, but I know there is so much more outside the law and that wanderlust is beast to tame. So, I’m working hard to focus on the now. But also, I’m rebelling a little by starting this blog among all the chaos. Practical? I guess we shall see.
P.s. Okay, okay my now focus needs work, but I was mourning the apparent sale of my dream van this morning. Until I stumbled on this ice cream truck for sale. Tell me it doesn’t scream home sweet home…
Home sweet home.
outsyde the law 