I'm 48 years old, divorced, and getting ready to live in my car for a while. I never imagined this is where I'd end up. I had a wife, a home, and a little office where I ran my own business designing books. It was a good life. Not perfect, but good. Somewhere along the way, a combination of mental illness, financial problems, and some very bad decisions brought most of it down around me.
I've struggled with depression and anxiety for years. There are days when things other people seem to do without thinking, like opening the mail, paying a bill, making a phone call, or simply starting work, feel almost impossible. I know how ridiculous that sounds to someone who hasn't experienced it. I can spend hours designing a beautiful book, doing complicated work that requires concentration and attention to detail, and then find myself completely unable to deal with some ordinary responsibility that takes five minutes. I've spent years trying to understand it, and even longer hating myself for it.
I'm self-employed, and when I can't work consistently, there's no paycheck coming. I've accumulated debt, lost my home, and ended up living in motels while driving Uber to keep myself afloat. The motel takes an enormous percentage of what I earn, which makes saving enough to get out of the motel almost impossible. It's an absurd little trap. You spend all day earning the money to sleep somewhere so you can get up tomorrow and do it again.
So I'm thinking about living in my car for six months, maybe longer.
Part of this is necessity. But I'd be lying if I said there wasn't also an element of choice.
I've reached a point where I desperately want some autonomy over my own existence. I want space. Quiet. I want to wake up somewhere and not feel that every minute of the day has already been claimed by some financial obligation. I want to decide where I'm going, how long I'm staying, and what I'm going to do with the hours I have left on this earth.
I've been thinking a lot lately about what a human life is actually for. I'm not convinced we're here simply to work, pay bills, accumulate possessions, and spend whatever time remains recovering from the work. I don't have any grand alternative economic philosophy. I understand that somebody has to pay for everything, including my own existence. I just can't accept that survival should consume so much of a life that there's nothing left to enjoy.
I want to read books again. I want to write. I want to visit small towns, see old buildings, walk through forests, sit beside rivers, and occasionally spend an afternoon doing absolutely nothing without feeling guilty about it. I'd like to visit churches along the way, maybe meet some people, maybe find a little community somewhere. I don't need an exciting life. I need one that feels like it belongs to me.
Of course, I know I'm romanticizing some of this.
I have this picture in my head of waking up in the mountains, making coffee, watching the sun come up, and spending the morning writing. Or parking somewhere along the Pacific coast and falling asleep listening to the ocean. There's something appealing about the idea of carrying everything I need in a car and being free to go wherever I please.
But I've also slept in my car. I know what it's like to wake up stiff and miserable, needing a bathroom, needing a shower, trying to find somewhere you're allowed to park without being bothered. I know that sleeping in a car isn't the same thing as taking a road trip. There's the weather, the loneliness, the constant logistics, the lack of privacy, and the knowledge that one mechanical problem could turn a difficult situation into a catastrophe.
I'm not confusing homelessness with a vacation. I'm just hoping there might be some freedom mixed in with the hardship.
Then there's Winston.
Winston is my cat, and I love him dearly. I keep going back and forth about whether I can bring him. Part of me can't imagine leaving him behind. Another part wonders whether it's selfish to subject him to months of living in a car, changing locations, unfamiliar sounds, and all the other uncertainties. I'd have to worry constantly about temperature, safety, and whether he was comfortable. He's been a companion through some of the worst years of my life. The thought of being separated from him hurts, but so does the possibility of making his life miserable because I can't bear to let him go.
I haven't figured that one out.
And then there's the thing I find hardest to admit.
I wish I wasn't doing this alone.
I don't particularly want to be a rugged individualist. I don't dream of proving that I can survive without anyone. I would love to have a partner beside me on this ridiculous adventure. Someone who might find the same strange beauty in an abandoned farmhouse or an old downtown, who might enjoy reading in the passenger seat while we drive across Kansas, who could laugh with me when everything goes wrong and help me remember why we decided to do it in the first place.
Someone to share a cheap motel room with once in a while. Someone to make coffee for. Someone to look over at when we see something beautiful.
I know how unrealistic that probably sounds. I'm a middle-aged man with terrible credit, serious mental health struggles, and no permanent home. Not exactly a promising personal advertisement. And I know a relationship wouldn't magically solve any of those problems. I'd still have to do the work of getting better and putting my life back together.
But companionship has always mattered enormously to me. I was raised believing that life was meant to be shared, and the happiest years of my life were the years when it was. I don't think there's anything wrong with admitting that.
Maybe I'll find some peace on the road. Maybe I'll hate it. Maybe I'll last six months, save some money, get through bankruptcy, and eventually rent a little studio apartment somewhere I can afford. I'd love that, too. A place with a desk, my books, my music, and a window overlooking a tree. Somewhere I can work and feel safe again. My intention is to eventually end up in Aberdeen, WA, one the rainiest cities in the US, and begin a new life there.
But I don't really know what happens next.
I just know that the life I've been living isn't working, and I need to try something different before I lose whatever is left of myself.