I live with a man who is notoriously wishy washy, even by his own admission. He doesn't make big decisions quickly, or sometimes at all. And the answer I often get when asking what he wants is, "Do whatever you want."
And how do you figure out what you want? For me, process of elimination works well. I have been starting from Everything In The Whole Wide World and working my way backward. What don't I want? The idea is that this will eventually illuminate the right path.
In case you haven't been following our saga, I'm talking largely about the decision of what to do once we've finished RVing. We made a huge (for us) decision this week when we reserved an RV spot for ourselves in Corpus Christi. For three whole months next year! A commitment of that much time a year from now is huge for us. It'll be the longest we have stopped anywhere since we started this adventure a year and a half ago. We love the park, so it's a great way to buy ourselves some time.
But where do we go from here? How close are we to getting the sailboat? Do we even still want that?
These are the questions that run through my head, and YES, they are good "problems" to have. Since I tend toward anxiety, I find myself stressed out when there are no resolutions. And living in an RV is nothing if not unsettled. The idea that we would have a more permanent location (say, a condo) is extremely tempting. I'm way, way out of my comfort zone moving as much as we have been. So I find some comfort in the deciding, eliminating the things that we definitely do not want. And comfortingly, the list is growing.
In a nutshell:
- We don't want winter. Ever again. I don't miss it, and I certainly don't miss driving around in it.
- We don't want to work, though we both would if it came right down to it. The freedom of retirement is such a gift. Our schedules are our own, for the first time in our lives. Neither of us is ready to part with that yet.
- We don't want to be landlocked. We both really like the water, especially the vastness of the ocean.
- We don't want to stop traveling, at least not entirely. There is so much to see and do. But we don't need to drive. We can sail or fly or walk or bike. We are feeling the passing of time in our knees and shoulders and are determined to be as adventurous as we can...until we can't.
But above all else, we don't want to be pinned down on any one decision! We are trying to stay open to all of the possibilities, including eliminating all of the previous desires listed above. This is not an easy thing, to stay open. Living with arms wide open and and resolving to joyfully accept all that happens is constant effort, constant growth. The decision I make daily, even hourly, is to keep my heart and mind open.
