First off, I am 31 years old, I am single and I live in a mini-van by my parents driveway.

I have found myself…..  Unemployed.  Living in a mini-van.  Hopefully in another part of the world.  Behind the wheel of a medium sized van (mini-van or VanBun).  I ask myself everyday…how did I get here?

Ok, enough with the cryptic references to classic bands from the 80’s and the best SNL sketch ever.  I’ll get to the point.

The point is a half-assed retrospective on the last 4 years of my life.  This has been pieced together mostly by memory and photos.  Photos organize my life and create some proof that I existed.  They also help me document and understand my journey.  They came in handy during this exercise.

Episode I: Post-South America

It all started with a year long a year long trip to South America.  It was a fantastic trip.  Many countries were visited and unforgettable experiences were…experienced.  It was a defining year of my life.  The trip ended and, shortly after, the relationship with my travel partner and girlfriend ended.  I found myself unexpectedly living in the Bay Area without any clear direction; BUT I had a newfound sense of adventure, purpose (although unsure of the exact one), appreciation for life, enthusiasm and moxie.  I didn’t know exactly what I was going to do, but I knew it was going to be special.  I had one foot in the bay area, but one foot in every Spanish speaking country in the world.

I continued to work a lucrative, yet personally unsatisfying and soul-sucking job, while maintaining sanity by galavanting around: bicycle trips, camping expeditions with friends, trips to Australia, Guatemala, Mexico, New York City, Boston, New Orleans, Austin.  I discovered techno and dancing the night away at a dimly lit warehouse.  I re-joined volleyball leagues.  I strengthened the bond with existing friends and made a few new ones.  I joined weekly spanish-speaking happy hours to connect with other latin-culture loving folks.  It was a lot off fun.  But, eventually, these extra-curricular activities were not enough to quench my soul; I needed to change my career.  It was time to rip off the golden handcuffs and find something more meaningful in my professional life.

Episode II: 30’s Reckoning and Settling down

I don’t want to call it a mid-life crisis – more of a reckoning and transitional period.  I knew I needed a change, but what was it?  I was completely unsatisfied in my career; worse, I lost all enthusiasm that my work became sloppy and I became bitter.  It was a cushy situation, but I knew it was unhealthy.  I needed to leave.

What should I do?  Travel to Mexico and enroll at UNAM to take Spanish language classes?  Teach English abroad?  Go on a cross country bicycle trip?  Join the Peace CORPS?  Take a coding bootcamp?  Join a startup where I would be motivated and learn a lot?

The galavant options were very enticing; I loved the idea of living abroad, continuing to improve my Spanish, meet new people and have adventures.  But, the pull of community was too strong….friends, my brothers and family, volleyball, community, a lady, professional growth, etc.

I chose the startup route.

I’m living in a mini-van now, so clearly that was a mistake.

Episode III:  A debilitating Injury and a Professional Breakup

So, instead of adventuring abroad, I decided to double down on the Bay Area; within a few months, I moved to Oakland, joined a startup and entered into a committed relationship.

This is definitely what I wanted at the time.  I was happy doing all the things I listed above: volleyball, friends, bro’s, techno, bike rides, First Friday, being challenged professionally, the intimacy of a relationship.

Yet, the excitement of the new job wore off very quickly.  I realized that I did not enjoy the environment of working in a windowless office with 10 other people.  My former co-workers are all good people; but we shared different ideals; I valued being outside and having a work-life balance.  They enjoyed increasing conversion, writing clean code and working long hours.  Three months in, I knew it wasn’t a good fit.

I knew I had to do something to fix it.  I bought a motorcycle.

This added some excitement to my life, but it was short lived.  Even with all my galavanting (back to Mexico, Burning Man, The Country of Georgia) and weekend camping trips, I couldn’t escape the 40 hours a week at the soul-sucking factory.  To make matters worse, I started experiencing a weird knee pain while playing volleyball or walking for more than 30 minutes.  No more volleyball or walking long distances for me.  Sweet, more time to discuss frameworks for analyzing KPIs!

After countless doctor visits, physical therapy sessions, internet research, more doctor visits, I decided to have surgery on my hip to fix my knee problem.  Everything is connected.  The human body is complex.  The recovery was a grueling and challenging.  It was difficult to lose my mobility – especially being an active person.  But – it could be worse – at least it was temporary (hopefully).

Anyway, about 8 months into the job and 4 months after surgery, on a sandy beach near Bodega Bay, I chatted with my brother near the wood fort sculpture he constructed and realized that I needed to quit.  No, I WAS going to quit.

Meanwhile, the relationship had lost steam and we parted ways.  A personal breakup followed by a professional one.

 

Episode IV:  The Mania and Loathing of Unemployment – Present

Freedom!  Elation!  No more visits to the soul-sucking factory!  I’ve broken free of the hamster wheel!

Turns out having zero structure or responsibilities is challenging.  The resource curse.  I didn’t need to get a job immediately.  I’ve always had savings because I’ve hoarded cash most of my life.  I credit this to my parents who were always very frugal.  I become a bit more spendy in the last few years, but it wasn’t enough to empty my accounts.  Anyway, in the beginning, I was very focused.  I had several lists of things I wanted to accomplish.

I wanted to explore other methods of making a living; primarily photography.  I love taking pictures as a personal hobby, so why not do it as a career!?  Do what you love, right?  I spent months taking any gig I could, investing in gear, practicing, sprucing up my portfolio, trying to specialize in a field.  Photography is a physically demanding job – you’re lugging a bunch of gear around and contorting your body to get the perfect shot.  I realized that recovering from hip surgery while attempting to make a career out of photography is not a good combination.  My hip continued to flare up during photography and completely took the wind out of my sails.  That wasn’t the only issue though – being a professional photographer is 90% sales/marketing and networking.  You need to sell yourself.  It’s also a super saturated field.  Every flunkie with a DSLR thinks he can produce professional quality shots.  Also, taking pictures for fun is completely different than taking pictures because someone pays you.  For all those reasons and more, I decided to put professional photography on the back-burner.  I’m not saying I’ll never do it – but it’s not a priority right now.

So…what then?  I’m unemployed, I’m no longer pursuing photography.  I decided to go to Mexico for a month.  That was fun and inspiring – it renewed my interest to adventure abroad, I practiced my love of photography, brushed up on my Spanish and met cool people.

We arrive at present day.  I’m currently planning to teach English in Spain through a program run by the government.  The inner voice has been yelling at me for the past 3 years: get your ass abroad and DO something; volunteer, teach English, work.  Just live abroad.  Don’t be a tourist, but live.  Teaching English is the most accessible path to accomplish this goal.  I’ve never been to Europe, I’ve heard amazing things about Spain, I speak mediocre Spanish…all signs point to España.  The program starts in October and they place you in a school (will likely be the Muncie, Concord, Naperville or Omaha of Spain, but I don’t care).  These are my clear marching orders right now.

So, I have a plan for the future – but it starts in October.  What the hell should I do until then?

I considered doing a bicycle tour; I spent about 2 weeks training by increasing my mileage – things felt great and I was optimistic.  I was finally going to accomplish my dream of biking the pacific coast; something I had tried to do 2 years ago but was hampered by my injury.  Unfortunately, due to bicycling (or just too much activity in general), the hip became aggravated and I scraped the bike tour plans.  For several weeks, I was in a major rut; I had no direction, my dreams of bicycle touring were ruined and I was slowly watching my bank account drain.  I pushed through and went to plan B; acquire RV and travel around the U.S..  After consulting an RV and mobile living expert, he convinced me that an RV was overkill – especially given that I want to sell it in 4 months and teach English in Spain.

So, I bought a 2000 Toyota Sienna mini-van.  I removed the seats and converted it into a mobile home.  I have officially entered the community of van dwellers and it is fucking awesome.

That’s the plan.