So here’s to almost two months of being sorta homeless!
Van life has its ups and downs, for sure. I thought it was going to be much harder when I started. Honestly, it helped that I didn’t give myself much of a choice. I was fresh off the plane, grieving, untangling a life that had unraveled in slow motion. I was trying to get everything “right” again… which, spoiler alert, basically meant starting from zero.
I knew my drinking had spiraled and played its part in the great collapse. So when I arrived in Santa Barbara, originally planning just a week or two, it wasn’t just the ocean breeze or palm trees that got to me. Something clicked. Something landed in my chest and whispered, stay. Call it God, the universe, a higher power… call it whatever you want. I know what it was for me. It changed me.
I met people I didn’t know would become mentors, friends, life coaches, anchors. People who would crack me open in the best ways and remind me I’m not alone. It was immediate, I couldn’t leave. I wouldn’t leave.
Don’t get me wrong, there were so many other places I wanted to be. I wanted to go home to the Midwest, to see my family. I wanted to get on a plane back to Japan, to try and piece everything back together. I missed my husband, my dog, my life. But everything in me said: Be still. Be present. Be here.
So I stayed.
And somewhere in this stillness, I started to learn things. About myself. About who I want to become. About the ways I’d abandoned myself and the ways I could come back. I’ve found clarity in helping others, found meaning in small moments, found me again, even when I didn’t recognize the version staring back.
That said… yeah, I still miss Japan. I still wish I could go back and hit resume. But I know, deep down… I’d be carrying all the same darkness with me. These patterns I’m working to break? They don’t disappear when your ZIP code changes. I’ve tried. Trust me, I’ve moved enough in the last decade to prove it. That ache, that chaos? It always catches up unless you face it, treat it, untangle it, and finally, let it go.
So, no job. No housing. But still, I knew I needed to stay.
Enter: Oscar. The van, the myth, the legend. A 1991 Dodge B350 Xplorer that landed in my lap at just the right moment. The guest room at my brother’s place was about to close up shop, and I needed a space to call mine. A home. And Oscar would do just fine.
I was scared. No van experience. No mechanical know-how. No fancy conversion plan. Just the gut feeling that this was where I was supposed to be. A few weeks on the stock kitchenette fold-down bed was all it took to realize: I needed more legroom. So, in true DIY fashion, a friend and I tore out half the van in a local parking lot and built a longer bed, one I can (mostly) fit on.
When I say “longer,” I mean… just barely. I sleep vampire-style, arms crossed over my chest, flat on my back. God help the stranger who walks past my window mid-nap and thinks they’ve stumbled upon a true crime scene.
Other upgrades followed. I swapped out the old, inefficient fridge that was guzzling precious solar energy for a more sustainable 12V cooler. When you’re running everything off a cheap solar panel and a tiny battery, power becomes gold. And even now, most nights I run out before the sun does.
Next up? Storage and power. Right now, I have a small hanging closet in the back, a little cabinet for my pantry, and a bit of space under the bed. Not much. But I’ve got sketches in my notebook for what’s next - shelves, drawers, a dream layout I’ll build when I have the wood, the tools, the money, and the space.
Then there’s the electrical system. I dream of the day I won’t have to run an extension cord through my window like some janky little gremlin just to charge my phone. I’ve studied diagrams, read reviews, built an Amazon wishlist so long it deserves its own zip code. It’s going to happen. Just gotta save up, because damn, it’s not cheap.
In the meantime, I’m getting by. Little things. Little tweaks. Little habits that add up. I’m staying put for the summer. Working at the beach, surrounded by an amazing and supportive community. The nomadic life has shifted a bit for now, but it’s still deeply internal. Almost all of this journey happens inside.
People tell me I should make van life videos. Go viral. TikTok the chaos. And maybe I will. But for these first two months, it’s felt so personal, so mental, so mine, I don’t even know where I’d begin.
Right now, the project is figuring out how to store an eight-foot surfboard outside the van without blocking what little solar power I manage to collect. Let me tell you… an eight-foot board running down the center aisle of a tiny van? Chaos. Pure chaos. Many a stubbed toe. Many a muttered curse. But, like me, Oscar is a work in progress.
And that’s the truth of it: I don’t have a lot. But I have enough. I’m learning to live with less, and be okay with less. There’s still more I want. Of course. Life-improving systems. A little comfort. A little safety net. But there’s something beautiful in the simplicity. Something grounding. Something that feels like healing.
So yeah. Here’s to two months of being sorta homeless.