Earlier this month I said goodbye to my long-term friend, home, traveling companion, and coolest step-van ever. I had the step-van for 22 years, which is longer than the average marriage lasts so saying goodbye wasn’t easy. I felt as if I had experienced a death in the family for days. My body leaden, weighted down with grief.
A 1956 Ford P-350 (panel van), three-speed on the column, manual everything, it started life as a Prudential Overall Supply delivery truck, spent some years delivering nursery plants around San Diego County, and was converted into a camper by a couple in Mission Beach.
Letting go of the van I hadn’t driven in years was more than selling a car, it was relinquishing the dreams I had for my life in my 30s, dreams that were put on hold when my mother suffered a catastrophic stroke and required 24-hour care for the rest of her life.
Accepting the fact that there are no do-overs in life is hard. As long as I had the van, I could imagine myself traveling cross-country, settling down to teach mythology in some small northern California town, or living in Estonia among my dead relatives in a town where I have a family cemetery plot.
I now have room to make new dreams and figure out how I want to live the remainder of my life. I haven’t quite figure out the future, but there is room now that I have braved letting go of the past.
The future is not some place we are going to, but one we are creating. The paths are not to be found, but made, and the activity of making them, changes both the maker and the destination.
~ John Schaar
