Hello van fans, I have not written here for quite a while. In the fall of 2018, I had an unexpected turn of career events in which I took a job as an adjunct professor at a local university. It turns out that position takes a lot of time. It makes perfect sense to me when I write these words that such a job involving prepping weekly slides, reading assignments, grading papers and creating/grading tests would take up a lot of space in my life. At the time of accepting the position, I didn’t have full awareness of this. I should know about myself that I don’t always have realistic ideas of what I can accomplish on a day to day basis.
Respect the Van is meant to be primarily a place to talk about family travel. I find myself wanting more and more to talk about other aspects of family life too. Our journeys through life are a kind of travel after all, so it feels right.
As a mom, human of earth and van driver, I find it’s a theme of my life that things take longer than I expect. What kinds of things? Driving from place to place, whether it be from Pittsburgh to Maryland, my home to my college classroom or someplace else, it takes time. Cooking, food preparation, shopping, writing, working, having fun, stops at national parks, packing up camp, eating breakfast and so forth. You get the idea. I often find myself wishing I had more time for/with these things. Rushing. Hurrying. Squeezing some things in and then squeezing other things out.
If you know me personally, you probably know that I like to do all of the things. To be busy. To contribute. To take care of myself. To take care of others. To work. To serve.
These are all wonderful things. It is quite ambitious to do all of them to the degree that I try to do them. That is what takes up too much time. Over my years as a mom/human/van driver, I have noticed that the tasks I tend to deprioritize are the ones that involve art or self expression. The ones that don’t on their face have a big financial or social impact. Also, the ones that feel hard for me, not my specialty such as writing.
In my mind, Respect the Van is not just about respecting family travel and family life, but everything that goes into those things. There are many things to do and places we can go in our vans. Endless ideas and endless tasks. I will never have enough time for all of the things I want to do. But I have to make time/devote time/carve out time for writing. Even when it’s not perfect. Giving some time is better than giving no time.
So I hope you see more of my writing here in the upcoming weeks and months. I know I have limited time but I will make time for this. Yes, like everything else it takes longer than I expected to write but the time is well spent. Making time for this is about respect.