Mobility

Part 2 of Little House in Texas

Not all small houses are portable like ours.  We have a travel trailer.  It seemed most practical for us since we are en route to a different destination at the moment and we really didn't have time or the means to find or build anything else when we were ready to move.

Having a home that can go with us is quite a unique experience.  There is a real sense of being in touch with our freedom  like we have never experienced before.  Not only are we not anchored to a house on a fixed property,  we are also able to pretty much up and go on a whim.  My husband is really not an "up and goer" or a "whimmy" kind of guy (new word for the day, there)  but we could do it if we wanted to or needed to.

We lived in a "regular" home and had a "normal" life for many years before we made the change.  Any time we had ever moved prior to this move, we would have a different home, structure, neighborhood, all of that stuff, obviously.  It's expected and it's actually a big part of transitioning into a new area.  This time, when we left our home of eighteen years, we moved only about a block away.  We moved into the one we have now and we lived in it there for the better part of a year before we moved away.  For that stage of the move, really, only the size of the home had changed.

I'll have more to say about that stage of moving into something much smaller in future posts.

When the time came to move away from our town we simply hauled 'er off. I must say, it was an interesting experience.  To begin with, all of our worldly goods were in transit in one spot all together going down the road at high speeds sometimes, over bumps and through mountain passes.  That provoked a strange and stimulating set of emotions right there!  Then, when we arrived, we set it up, leveled it and BOOM!  Home!  Familiarity, comfort and convenience as if we had never moved.  It took a lot of the work out of moving to say the least.

It was the easiest move ever, yet very weird.  All the familiar surroundings were evaporated before our eyes the second the window shades were opened in the morning.  It was very disorienting.  Not bad, necessarily, just strange.  Perhaps any move after living nineteen years in the same area would be equally disorienting, but it just seemed pretty weird to have the old familiar and the totally unfamiliar all in the same field of vision.  It was amazingly exhilarating, as well, even if it was a bit sad because almost all of the familiar faces, the friends and people I would normally have shared things like this with were over a thousand miles away.

Fast forward to today.  We have been here for almost four months.  It is still not exactly familiar, but I absolutely love the area.  It's a great location for us for now.  We are near a small town, but not too near. Our place feels very rural despite the fact that we are only about a mile out of town.  It's very green and beautiful and for the most part I can get to what I need to get to easily and quickly.  I am become oriented.  I know where east and west are at least, if I stop and think about it for a minute.  I know my way around well enough now to be trusted to be let out alone.  I still haven't met anyone, really, and I feel like the outsider I am, but all that stuff rights itself over time.  Church will be "family" again some day and neighbors will wave and holler.

So that brings us up to now.  This blog will deal with the different aspect of living in a small home, from my perspective, for as long as we live in one.  A few posts, because it will probably take more than one, will be in answer to the one comment I heard more than any other when people found out how we were living: "In less than three months you will all be on each other's nerves and you will hate it."  There will probably be a few to prepare you for what people are likely to say, or think, how to deal with your family and friends who react badly, or you expect might react badly.  Also, at some point, probably frequently, I will talk about travel trailers and the ups and downs associated with living full time in one.  I'll talk about issues of storage, power and lights, weather, buying a used RV, and whatever else comes up as I experience life here.

I would like to close on a high note and plainly say that I love it.  I really do.  It's an adventure!  It's different!  It's great!