For 20 years, I have been Mom, provider, protector and safe place. Even during the years I was married, my children were always the center of my world and I did everything I could to keep us moving forward.
Somewhere along the way, though, we became very good at surviving life instead of actually living it.
Over the past several years, my youngest daughter has faced challenges no child should have to carry. This summer brought even more trauma, and watching my 13-year-old struggle has changed something in me. I realized that continuing to live exactly the way we have been living and hoping things somehow get better isn’t enough.
So we’re doing something big.
Something we’ve talked about for years.
We’re going.
Our dream is to purchase a small motorhome, sell most of what we own, pack the things that truly matter and hit the road together.
There isn’t a final destination pinned on a map. The destination is healing.
We want mornings surrounded by mountains instead of noise. Nights under stars. State parks, little towns, oceans, forests, campfires, long conversations and experiences that remind a young girl that the world is so much bigger than the painful piece of it she has known.
I don’t believe an RV or a beautiful view magically fixes trauma. We will continue doing the real work of healing. But I do believe sometimes you need enough distance from the noise to finally hear yourself again.
My older children are grown and beginning lives of their own. For the first time in two decades, I’m giving myself permission to stop building our entire existence around simply making it through another day.
I want my daughter and me to live.
We will be selling nearly everything we own and contributing everything we can toward this ourselves. I’m asking for help creating the initial nest egg that will allow us to purchase and prepare the motorhome, cover our first months of travel and keep an emergency fund available while we establish our new life on the road.
If you can’t contribute financially, please don’t feel like your support doesn’t matter. Share our story. Send us a campground recommendation. Tell us about a beautiful place we need to see. Pray for us. Encourage my girl. Follow along as we discover what life looks like on the other side of survival.
Twenty years ago, I became a mom and devoted my life to protecting my babies.
This chapter is still about protecting my child.
But this time, I’m also going to teach her how to live.
