Like all good stories I have about 17 different places to start and I really should first sit down and settle on a path before beginning. Since I am me, I will not be doing that.
The year was two thousand and twenty, and the world was weary. My depression was getting harder to keep at bay. The sad reality is we were all probably closer to being commonly united than ever before, just in exhaustion.
That is a different story though, focus. I had been retired from the military for about 5 years at this point, and was still attempting to be a productive member of society. I divorced after 20 years of marriage, all of which overlapped with my service. The courts view military retirement as property and therefore divisible, which meant that a decent portion of my military retirement could be awarded to my ex-wife, up to 50%. I ended up paying less than it could have been, and valuing the peace much higher. I agreed to pay the happiness tax and haven’t looked back since.
On top of all of that, This walking in the woods for nearly 7 months costs more than you would think, In short I was broke. I needed to earn a few more dollars if I was to keep enjoying this vagabond lifestyle I’d grown accustomed to.
What job though?
As you get close to the end of your time in the military, people start asking, what are you going to do after you retire? The Problem was always that I had no clue, I spent each year crossing off things from the list. Going right back into the government was lucrative, but at the very bottom of my list.
In the end I settled on and began my career as a Licensed Home Inspector. It seemed to make sense, I could work independently, I could put some use to the knowledge gained, provide a real service. It all seemed to check out, I like building stuff, what could go wrong?
A lot, if I were to keep doing it, but it didn’t take me long to see that it wasn’t a great choice. I was as shocked as you are. It had all the hallmarks of something great, but it just wasn’t a great fit for me. For one, it was a lot of screen time, a whole lot of repetitive report writing. Plus to be a great inspector you have to get into the weeds, devote yourself to the craft and really paying attention each and every single day, and This is precisely where they lost me. Spending the days entirely focusing on the faults, and the worst case scenarios if left unchecked, it was all having an effect, and not a good one.
I was riding the high from walking the trail, and still having a hard time. The depression was getting worse, I wanted and needed a change. there was no way that I was going to spend years going through this same cycle. I needed to finish some healing.
I came up with a few plans, all of which seemed to solve the money for my lifestyle problem, by changing the lifestyle I was willing to live.
I knew that I had “X” coming in each month from my military retirement. If I could make that enough, then maybe with that time I could heal and then I would find the thing I wanted to do.
It started with selling damn near everything that I spent years collecting, including my favorites,
Sigh.
I came up with this fancy design for a camper that was supposed to look like a stealth fighter jet. That would take time, so I built a little temporary camper to get started.
A good enough to get going home. Once I get the urge to move, it is hard to satiate without the going the miles and I was ready to go. I left NC in January. I figured I would need maybe 3-4 months.
It wasn’t all bad,
I was able to make some progress before stalling out. I simply could not see the next steps on how to merge artistic with my level of craftsmanship. What could go wrong did go wrong.
Weather started taking its toll on the unfinished portions of the project. The temporary home was tiny and not meant to support the three of us beyond 3 months. Now past 12.
Nerves were wearing thin and I once again found myself needing to do something drastic. I scrapped it all and started over.
I knew that I needed to do this build in stages. First stage, get a shell built and get out of that temporary thing.
Check.
Everything else could be figured out from here as it was just about time to hit the road again.
The goal was to use as much free repurposed or salvaged material as I could to not only keep cost down, but to also add that rustic motif I like.
Never staying in one spot too long before getting back out on the road. Little by little adding to the build as I traveled.
When not building, it gave me the freedom to explore places and feelings. I needed a real assessment of who I was post military, post marriage, post raising children. I wanted to rid myself of the external noise, in hopes that I could hear then maybe heal the internal noise.
So far so good. I think.
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