At the very edge of the world...
nope just kidding, but I'm in Maine and it's cool
It’s a beautiful sunny Saturday here in Maine, Machiasport to be exact. Just a few clouds lingering off in the distance. Crisp, salty air. Ticking one more state off my list of places I hadn’t been to until about a week ago.
It’s really hard to put into words what life has been like recently. If I could roll up a whole list of adjectives to describe it, I suppose if I could combine “Thrilling” and “What the fuck am I doing with my life?” …
… whatever that word is would be how I’d describe it. And yes, I realize the latter isn’t an adjective, but I digress.
For those that don’t know, I suppose I went through what one would call a “mid-life crisis” around the tail end of 2020. I was 32 years old… bored, uninspired, surrounded by average people and simply existing.
I don’t think Covid had anything to do with it if I’m honest. I simply had too much time on my hands, had nothing to challenge me, no purpose to drive me and had gotten far, far too comfortable, etc. etc. etc.
The reality is at age 32, I needed a change. I didn’t want change, but I needed change.
And this wasn’t going to be a half-ass change either. I was going to be going all-in. And either was going to fail spectacularly or it was going to be unbelievably epic and something I’ll remember for the rest of my life.
So of course I did what any completely logical 32-year old guy would do. Plans were put in motion to sell everything and start traveling full-time, all whilst working remotely, full-time.
And if I was looking for a nice shiny new challenge, this was most certainly going to be it. What seemed like an almost endless list of questions (which I didn’t have answers to) started popping up almost immediately.
“Ok, what is this going to look like?”
“Cost?”
“Do I get a van? RV? SUV?”
“What about Internet access?”
“What will my Clients think about this?”
“How do I determine what I will bring with me?”
“Should I rent a storage unit?”
And so on and so forth… Literally so many questions and unknowns.
Airbnb’s were mad expensive based on my research, in some cases 3-4x more than I was paying for my apartment in Texas at the time. Financially that was not going to be doable.
And then there was the small little dilemma of traveling with a dog.
The more YouTube research I did, the more questions I had. It was a very vicious circle of analysis paralysis. My biggest concern was about how expensive this ordeal would actually be vs. my projections on paper.
Even if somehow all the stars aligned for me, the first 6 months were going to be extremely rough. Lots of trial and error. Tons of stuff going wrong.
(all of which was absolutely correct btw)
At the time, I truly hated dealing with unexpected surprises.
The key takeaway from all of my research is at the end of the day, you can plan all you want. Shit is going to happen when you are on the road and you’re going to have to suck it up and deal with it. Either that or sit at home and be bored. The choice is yours.
The question is how bad do you want it?
Well… I wanted it. And at age 32, it was now or never.
As I continued to relentlessly ponder the feasibility of this next chapter of my life, lo and behold, a 2003 Toyota 4Runner Sport Edition 4WD showed up on OfferUp out of nowhere for a very reasonable $6,500.
Interesting.
For those that aren’t familiar with this space, the 4th generation 4Runner 2003-2009 was at the top of my list for vehicles because that’s the last model that had the now infamous “million-mile” 4.7L V8.
These Toyota trucks are literally bullet-proof.
I messaged the owner immediately and went to take a look. 229k high-way miles on the odometer. Zero rust. Engine ran smooth. Clean CarFax.
Was able to negotiate Oscar down to $5,800 in cash and the rest is history.
Just like that, I had my car.
Crazy.
Thus fell the first big domino in a series of dominos that would continue to fall before me and ultimately pave the way for the most epic year of my life.
The apartment was cleaned out a few weeks later. Was able to get everything (and I mean everything) sold on OfferUp. If you haven’t used OfferUp to buy/sell pretty much anything, I highly recommend it. It’s truly amazing.
And lastly, I was able to find my first monthly Airbnb stay in Ruidoso, AZ for what I thought was a very reasonable price.
(would come to find out that the Internet was powered by a Verizon hotspot with 30GB of data lol, cue my first of many experiences with Internet connectivity anxiety)
Was it perfect? No.
Was I in the game? Yes.
And that my friends is exactly the point.
90% of life comes down to simply getting started.
Stop sweating the details. It doesn’t need to be perfect.
But you need to get started. And you need to get in the game.
For me, I was finally back in the game and there was no turning back now.
To be continued!
