Toward Freedom, With Structure

I’m back! The return trip was a little rocky. I had booked an award flight from Rome to JFK four days before, so I wasn’t surprised to find myself in a middle seat. I’ve been incredibly lucky with seat assignments over the last four months, so no complaints here. But, it was a 10-hour flight that was delayed by three hours and then we spent another hour on the tarmac at JFK waiting for a gate and a jetway operator. And, well, it’s JFK, which meant that it took nearly two hours to get to my sister’s place in CT. But here’s where it gets good–I walked in the door to be met with the biggest hug, with actual tears of joy at seeing me. I have the best sisters. You couldn’t ask for a better welcome.

I had been surprised the night before, standing beside the Trevi Fountain in Rome, to find tears coming to my eyes. I think it was a combination of things, relief at reaching the end of the trip, sadness at my grand adventure coming to an end. I’m really grateful to have had this incredible experience, and I’m also very happy that it’s over. Bittersweet. I remember being struck, in the JFK shuttle to the rideshare pickup lot, by how effortless it was to be back in the U.S. Everyone speaks English. I can read all the signs, there’s no mysterious activity or behaviors that I have to interpret or foods I can’t identify. Just New Yorkers, doing their thing.

This week has been restful and quiet, in the best possible way. I surprised myself by getting teary the first time I walked into a Trader Joe’s. I drove a car for the first time since August, and had to re-download Waze because it had been so long. And Carey was able to get away for a few hours, picking me up at the house and taking me to our happy place, Costco (that sounds sarcastic but it’s not). It felt rather fitting that our first “date” in four months involved a Costco run. I’m back, baby!

I very quickly changed gears upon arriving. I have identified a used van in MA that could work well for my new home-on-wheels and arranged for an independent inspection. It’s a 2023 Ram Promaster 2500 high roof with about 30,000 miles on it. I figured out how I’m going to register it, spoke with an insurance agent who is now on standby, and made a plan for how get it to the point where I can live in it while finishing the rest of the build. I’ve mapped this out in great detail and I’m calling it Phase 0.

The current plan is to head up to see my parents today for a few nights, get my son moved into his college dorm in Boston this weekend, move into my rental apartment next week, and spend the month of January ordering everything I can think of to make Phase 0 quick and seamless, secure the van, and then in early February drive it down to FL where I can spend the month waiting out the cold weather and starting my build in Carey’s driveway. I would have never suggested staying in his house for a whole month, but in his driveway? It seems like a much smaller ask.

I’m genuinely excited about this van project, and delighted that it’s finally here. Ordering power tools and sketching out Phase 0 feels less like preparation and more like commitment–to shaping a life that stays flexible on my terms. It took me a long time to learn how to live with the ambiguity of not knowing what comes next, and the van feels like my way of holding that uncertainty more gently. I can move if I want to, but I’ll be rooted in a space that is personal, familiar, and entirely mine. Building it myself (instead of buying something premade) is both a challenge and a choice—it reflects my love of learning, my growing confidence in my own abilities, and my desire to stay open to whatever comes next. After months of outward movement, what I’m after now isn’t constant motion, but freedom with structure.