216: What It's Really Like to Live on a Bus With 8 People
What's it like to live on a bus with 8 people?
So, I was at my church, and a lady came up to me, and said, are you still living in the bus? And said yes! She says, to me or another lady, wow, and you look so normal! I just laughed, yes, I think for the most part I’m pretty normal! So I thought I would share on here what it’s really like to live in a bus with 8 people. Because I know a lot of people can’t imagine it. It sounds horrible and not for them. That’s okay. There are parts of it that I don’t like, and parts I love.
To recap for those of you who don’t know, my husband Justin and I bought a school bus in July 2020 after deciding in November 2019 that we wanted to buy one and convert it into a schoolie. It’s really because of Aria that this came about. Because of her death, we learned that life is truly short, and my husband, I, or any of our other kids could die. So we wanted to live our dreams now, not in retirement, and figure out a way to spend more time with our kids, and as a family. And doing this school bus and traveling in the country was a huge dream that with a ton of work, effort, and just taking steps forward has happened for us.
At the time of this recording, we’d been living in the bus for 17 months, with a few little breaks here and there, but not having a consistent rental, house, or place to live. We do not own a house, everything we own is with us in our school bus. And so after living this long, which we will be moving into an Airbnb in Utah for a couple of months to have baby number 8 and recover, and then move back in the bus, after living in the bus this long, I wanted to share what it’s really like. As I said, there are positives and negatives. With everything you do, it will be amazing, and hard. And all the hard we are willing to deal with because of the amazing it’s been so far for us. But we’ve thought often that we couldn’t live this way in such a small space if it didn’t give us the ability to be able to travel and pick up and move at any time. We don’t dream of living in a tiny house when we own a house someday, because space in a house is nice. But being able to drive your house around, and see different parts of the country is pretty amazing, so it’s been worth it to us so far.
Positive things
get to travel and see so many amazing parts of the country
get experiences that most people don't get in their life
spend lots of time together as a family-we’ve had a few longer breaks where we’ve been completely by ourselves. have to learn to work through conflict
forced us to figure out how to work on the road, which is an amazing thing that both Justin and I have the flexibility and can work from anywhere as long as we can connect to the internet
get to learn and explore in a whole new way. Our kids are learning about things in person and experiencing them instead of just reading about them in a book
it takes pretty quickly to clean up, and we just don't have as much stuff to deal with as you would in a house
everything has a place, and I love that. It's not always completely organized but everything has a spot to go. If it doesn't, it either finds a spot or I get rid of it
we get to spend a lot of time outside. - I get to cook outside lots of the time. We have a camp chef that we cook outside on, and it’s lovely to go outside, enjoy the weather and get fresh air while cooking.
this one was a huge lesson for me, and I’m so grateful to learn it. I knew this before, but I feel like this cemented it into my mind. That life is 50/50. It doesn’t matter where or what you are doing in your life, you can imagine that oh if you didn’t have to work, or if your husband was nicer, or if you had more time or whatever it is that your imagining, you think if only this would happen then life would be better. And that can happen, and it can get better in that way, but life is still 50/50. So when we were building the bus, I had a very fairytale view of what it would be like. I had dreamed forever that we could be not location dependent, feeling trapped and stuck in having to go to a job every day, unable to take vacations because of PTO, and feeling like someone else is running your life and schedule, which is true. But then, when we were on the road and we were experiencing location-independent freedom, new things come up. A new negative 50 comes up. And this isn’t to discourage you from going to do the things you want to do, I still have things I’m working towards and things I want to do, even though I know, it is deep in my bones. There is no better than here. I do want to quickly give a caveat since this is Grieving Moms Podcast and I’m talking about grief most of the time. Doing the work with grief and getting to a more stable ground place is better. I 100 percent recommend and encourage that because, for me, it is better now than it was after Aria died. But- now is still 50/50. Life is 50/50 no matter which way you cut it. There will always be challenges, and sometimes we get to lessen one challenge and then we have a different one. But I truly believe this is a part of our experience and the more we embrace it, the more fulfilled a life we can have!
If we don’t like our neighbors, we can move. We don’t get much control over neighbors when we are in public spaces. But, the beautiful thing is our house is on wheels, so we can just move. One time I was being a bit stubborn about this, one person was being what I consider rude, disrespectful, and annoying to be around, and Justin was like, well let’s just move, and I dug my heels in a bit for whatever reason, then we moved, and I realized, wow, that was great to move. My mind is not occupied with this annoying neighbor anymore, and I can just enjoy my time. So this is a benefit of a house on wheels!
Negative things
small space and lots of people equals lots of noise and overstimulation, it can be hard to get time by myself unless I leave the bus, and I can end up pretty overstimulated.
moving often and the unknown of where we will be next
small spaces with crying kids and neighbors can be stressful
work/life is hard to balance, and with no dedicated office space for either of us, it can be frustrating. So far I've just gone to Starbucks or worked from my car which has made for a lot of really sweaty podcast episodes and interviews in my car in hot Florida
we are a lot more aware and feel the weather changes a lot more than if you are in a house. Humid and hot make for sweaty days. Cold used to make for freezing nights though we now have a diesel heater so cold isn't too big of a problem now unless it gets below 30 degrees
it's constantly messy. Even though it's easy to clean up it gets dirty so so fast. I probably sweep the floor 15 times a day, and it still feels always dirty. Small space with lots of bodies makes messes happen faster. So even though it's quick to clean up, we gotta clean it often
it's hard to be away from a community feel, having close friends and family nearby, church to go to, and our kids able to play with friends and cousins
getting items shipped is incredibly challenging, it mostly just you have to plan very well and pay attention to where you are shipping things and if you will still be in that area when it arrives
no access to outside babysitters, though our kids are starting to be able to babysit for short periods, I would still like to be able to have a babysitter come once or twice a week where I can have focused time working. With our situation right now it's not an option so we have to figure it out without getting outside help and it can be challenging at times.
there's nothing glamorous about traveling. When I say that, I mean the driving part. Seeing new places is amazing, and I love that we can travel this way, it's a great way to travel with a family. But it's exhausting. Many nights we spend at Walmart, cracker barrel, or other parking lots, and sometimes the days there too if Justin needs to work during the day before we can drive again. Food is more challenging to figure out these days because you need easy meals and dishes to fill the sink and everything is messy.
it's more expensive than you might think. We don't have a mortgage but we have gas, and campgrounds if we stay at them, and if you've ever looked at campgrounds they can vary from $20 a night which seems unheard of now to a high of like $120 a night to park your rig. Then there's fixing the wear and tear inside the bus and fixing parts on the bus. Every time we take the bus in, it's not a cheap bill that's for sure. And I would say our bus probably doesn’t break near as much as an RV since people talk about things breaking constantly, where I don’t feel like we are always having problems, but any maintenance, repair, and fixing things, is a big part of our expense when we live in a bus.
Composting the toilet is not our favorite thing.
unable to host company or have people over.
As always, I intend to assist you on your grief journey, to hold a light in the darkness, and show you it’s possible to live a trigger-free existence, and a life filled with joy after your child dies.
I’m always holding on to hope for you until you are ready to hold it for yourself!
See you next week!
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The racing mind, unable to sleep, waiting for the next bad thing to happen, unable to breathe, panicky kind of anxiety, whole body riddled with anxiety?
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So that you can think clearly, feel calm in your body, and live your life without the chains of anxiety.
