Van Life | Loneliness & Relationships on the Road | Life Update

[Music] the question i get so often and a lot of you want to know does it get lonely [Music] yeah [Music] it's been another month since my last life update video a lot has happened i really have to get better at posting these more often so i don't have to cover so much in every video but anyway we left off in montana after backpacking in glacier national park i actually hadn't planned on leaving montana so soon but a heatwave moved in and after three days of 100 degree temps nathaniel and i decided to head for the coast for the first time since last september we were finally back in washington the land of cool weather foggy mornings alpine lakes and mountain views but something fell off i have been going through some rough patches lately but i know that in the grand scheme of things just life in general like my struggles are small and my words are super minimal and this really just pertains to road life but i did want to touch a little bit about or touch a little on the loneliness and solitude that can exist out here on the road um i know a lot of you might be interested in this lifestyle and the last thing i want to do is create this illusion that everything is always rainbows and butterflies um for one like community and stability can be really hard to achieve on the road i personally am someone that truly thrives off of routine and yeah finding a way to have that balance when you're constantly moving around and every day looks different that can be hard to do after arriving in washington nathaniel and i actually booked a two-week house sit near the north cascades um this beautiful house and there are actually no pets we were just looking after a garden so it seemed like the perfect way to kind of get out of my funk creatively and reset re-establish some routines and yeah just kind of take it easy but after those two weeks i still felt like something was off and for me personally that usually just means one thing i desperately needed some solitude and alone time i have always been like this even as a kid i'm an extroverted introvert which is to say i love being around people and i love big parties and concerts and events but i need alone time to recharge without it i just become this different version of myself like i'm grumpy tired uninspired i'm just i'm hard to be around being in a relationship with someone who also lives on the road has made alone time difficult to carve out for ourselves not for any reason other than we like being around each other and we've gotten used to the convenience of being together especially on the road there's safety in numbers if one person gets stuck the other can help out and if one runs out of propane the other one has a backup if a place feels kind of sketchy we have two opinions instead of one we're comfortable basing in the same place together but doing our own thing we work well together and all of that makes it hard to make time for solitude which got me thinking about loneliness it's a question i get so often and a lot of you want to know does it get lonely yeah but also maybe not in the way you might think for me personally the loneliest moments of my adult life have all been in situations where i was surrounded by people like a large dinner party or a big group event usually a situation where i'm going into it already feeling really socially drained and like i haven't had sufficient alone time and i just fail to connect with anyone on a deeper level and i really struggle with the surface level conversation um i wind up feeling like i'm on an island of people who just won't stop talking and i feel lonely as hell i thought about this for a few days while recording and i truly cannot think of a time in my adult life when i was physically alone and lonely because of it it's actually something i want to explore further by maybe planning like um a long through hike a solo through hike or something at some point just so that i can better understand where those boundaries exist for me but who knows i mean maybe i'm meant to be one of those park rangers who live off the grid in fire tower lookouts for months on end i mean that does sound kind of nice actually so i just finished reading east of eden by john steinbeck beautiful beautiful book by the way there's this scene in the book where one of the main characters goes to the bar one evening he felt a crippling loneliness for the close men in barracks intent his impulse was to rush into a crowd for warmth any crowd the first crowded public place he could find was a little bar thronged and smokey he sighed with pleasure almost nestled in the human clot the way a cat nestles into a wood pile he ordered whiskey and drank it and felt warm and good he did not see or hear he simply absorbed the contact i've never understood the craving to be around large groups of people just for the sake of physical presence because i've spent most of my adult life doing just that and it has always always drained me you know like in in work settings i used to be a manager abercrombie fitch i was constantly surrounded by people in college or when i was a waitress or just people everywhere all the time and to me that was an obstacle to be overcome to think that those situations might fill a person up that's such a foreign concept to me um and i feel like it's what we as a society celebrate most you know we assume that everyone wants to be the life of the party everyone wants to be the center of attention everyone wants to be around a whole lot of people like the more people the better but that's not always the case for some people it is um but not for all of us just because you're in a house with your friends and with your family and with your community you can still be lonely and just because you're in a van all alone in the middle of nowhere you can still feel full and happy loneliness can look and feel different for each of us and i just think it's important that you take time to look inside and understand what you need in order to feel whole and happy so that you can be the best version of yourself and just show up for others and yourself in the best way so all of that to say nathaniel and i did what we have to do every few months we carved out some alone time for ourselves and said goodbye for about a week i stayed in the mountains and then i moved to the sea and through it all i was just alone and it was beautiful simple and exactly what i needed [Music] this is one of my favorite campsites i've been here for a couple nights and now i'm gonna go catch the ferry and head over to the olympic peninsula and it's so foggy and beautiful out here right now oh yeah i forgot i have blocks gotta go get those i'm trying to catch a ferry in the next 30 minutes so i just threw these up here as you can see they're not holding up too well like busting under the weight of van but now my van is really a storage unit so i just went through the booth and the guy said they are booked solid all day and tomorrow if i want to stick around and try to get on standby in two and a half hours i can so i'm just kind of debating like should i hang around here and keep looping around and trying to get on or drive but the drive is six and a half hours and if i take the ferry it's only three and a half hours so not really sure what i'm gonna do yet but for now maybe i'll just hang out [Music] so i'm heading up this forest road to a new spot that i've never been to before i'm just like so burnt out on cities and people uh i get really stressed out when i have to be in a city for too long so i'm excited to just check out and be in the woods for a while [Music] avocado [Music] basil sprouts lemon [Music] do [Music] so [Music] after about a week i met up with mariah alice at the beach another female van lifer whose channel i love because she's just so raw and honest and also because finn just might be the cutest dog ever mariah is 22 and i'm 36 which is a pretty big age gap i don't think either of us really knew what to expect in terms of conversation and whether or not we'd actually have that much in common but just four minutes after meeting we were diving into deep questions no small talk just straight to the real stuff it's something that tends to happen whenever i'm in the company of other road lifers regardless of our age gaps or life experiences it's as if we have this mutual understanding that everything is temporary and time is an illusion if you want to connect with someone on the road you just go all in you skip the small talk you make the most of the time you have and share the stories that tie you together because sooner or later you'll continue down your own path and drive away from one another it's kind of sad but it's also really beautiful goodbyes aren't really a thing on the road it's always just the see you later after a week on the peninsula i drove up to bellingham to reunite with nathaniel mason and huxley were in the same area so we based together for a few days near the puget sound we spent our mornings making coffee together at the park and the afternoon's editing coffee shops knights parked together in an overlook by the sea it was nice almost like a mini routine for a few days mariah joined us a week later and we headed up to mount baker for an overnight hike in the mountains ben no no no oh my god he's so excited he loves it so pretty much [Music] i'm filming [Music] [Music] do [Music] [Music] good [Music] morning have we're almost there after our hike i hung around baker for a little while longer with my friend drew who happened to be in the parking lot when mariah and i hiked down some other friends rolled through too which is one thing i love about living on the road you never really know who you'll run into or where the day will take you it's one of the main reasons i'm still so committed to this lifestyle the spontaneity and ever-present feeling of adventure is just too good to pass up a few days later my stepdad flew in from kentucky and i spent some quality time with him my little brother and my one and a half-year-old nephew it was so good to see them and reconnect after so much time apart looking back it's pretty eye-opening to revisit all the ups and downs and rollercoaster of emotions that i've experienced just over the last few weeks mostly i'm just grateful to be here you know just like out here experiencing these things and just living life out on the road um it's always an adventure never a dull moment and yeah you just never know where it will lead next so um thank you for being here and thank you for a hundred thousand subscribers i couldn't believe it i just hit it this morning i'm really excited to keep creating for you guys just like sharing more about this lifestyle and your support means so much so i hope you guys are having a wonderful day wherever you are and i will catch you next time

Channel: Christian Schaffer

Views: 27,667

Rating: 4.9722223 out of 5

Keywords: vanlife, loneliness, lonely, solitude, relationships, mentalhealth, hiking, camping, friendships, solofemale, tinyhome, campervan, washington, life update

Id: sQqy6GrGdiM

Length: 17min 20sec (1040 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 22 2021