New and lots of anxiety and fear

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Katt

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Hi, my name's Katt. I'm a bit of a storyteller, so buckle in, haha. I'm not even sure where to start. I love that there is a forum outside of social media giants like fb for this. I'm a GenX'er, turning 50 in a couple of weeks, and I spent a lot of time on forums just like this. One or two even helped me meet people that radically changed my life, 15-20 years ago.

Now it's 2021. I'm sitting here in my bus, which has been parked in an RV space in a small mobile home community just outside of Buffalo, NY since we were forced to move from our driveway in the suburbs last August. Our former home is being rented to a friend for slightly less than the cost of the mortgage, and every month the rent she pays has been going straight back into the house, and then some. I remember when we bought that house. The kids loved it, we all loved it. Now someone else's family is loving it. We're hoping she can buy it in the next year or two.

Across the street from our present location is a storage facility, where we rent a rather large unit full of stuff that was mostly intended to be sold off last spring but didn't because I've been avoiding humanity...like the plague. I literally almost worked myself to death in my career and suffer from some partially debilitating health issues. It is very difficult to hold down a full time job. I was laid off from my IT job in September. My husband, thankfully is still employed and earns a good living working for the same company I did. Things are OK for now, but we both know that anything can happen, just like it did when we both found ourselves unemployed at the same time and almost lost our home to foreclosure just a year after we bought it. My husband worked for the bank that sold us the mortgage for 11 years. Three months after closing, he was unemployed.

A lot has happened since then. You know you're desperate when you take a job as an IT person for a payday loan company. Looking back on it, I'd think I'd rather flip burgers than know I helped contribute to someone else's hardship. My career was radio, from the time I was 16 until I was forced out of my job as the chief engineer at a group of radio stations here in NY for the crime of coming out as trans. I never went to college. I've always taught myself everything. I had some great mentors and got some good breaks. I was lucky and had a decent speaking voice as well. Life has definitely not been kind to me since I came out. I lost most of my family, who are devoutly religious. I won't get into the details. The last 15 years have been the best and worst of my life.

A few years ago as my youngest was almost ready for college, I began talking to my husband about getting out Buffalo and living in an RV. When I was a kid, I had this plan to take my cat and build a trailer for my bike, with a litter box and a heated bed for him, and bike across the country to visit some extended family in California and see the world. But being raised in a devout religious family that drilled into me that life was all about family and kids and church and a home with a white picket fence in the suburbs... Obviously that didn't happen. I've lived many places and traveled a bit, though. I've lived in the Adirondacks. I lived in southwest Virginia for a few years. I've lived in the suburbs, the country, the city, in a house, apartment, and a mobile home. And now, a bus.

Speaking of bus... This thing is a monster. 40 feet by 8.5. It's almost as old as I am and we bought it cheap, knowing it needed a lot of work. We bought a large bus instead of a smaller vehicle, for several reasons; Chief of them being, we also have five cats who are family and there's no way we were getting rid of our cats, especially considering that they're all rescues and three of them are in their senior years. When we are down a few cats, we will likely downsize. Anyway, I drove it 350 miles from Ohio to Buffalo at the very beginning of the pandemic. We parked it at our house and immediately drew the ire of the neighbor across the street who hated me literally just because I'm trans. The village finally forced us to move it. Thankfully we found this spot, but a part of me wishes we had just taken the leap and gone west in August.

So this past week, our next-door neighbor here in our current location decided to be a troublemaker. Once again, a guy who figured out we're a queer couple and he... hates queer people. Thankfully the rest of the neighborhood loves us and are awesome, but this guy was a harsh reminder of the reality that is people who want to hurt or eradicate that which they do not understand. That is one of my biggest fears on the road. That and breaking down, of not being able to find a place to land, or find a solid internet connection so my husband can work remotely. He has a good job, but we are massively in debt after all that job loss and medical issues and we depend on that job. The company is not giving him grief about leaving and living bus life, but if stable internet becomes an issue, it will be in jeopardy. Also, I'm very afraid of this pandemic.

My abilities are limited because of health, but I can do a lot of things and I maintain everything on the bus while my husband works full time and he does the cooking. I have good days and bad. I have cardiomyopathy and connective tissue/arthritis type stuff going on. I wanted to move west years ago to a dry climate, because the humidity here in NY in summer and cold, dry air in winter, plus debilitating allergies in spring and fall has made it so I can only spend very limited amounts of time outdoors where I love to be. We stayed here so the kids could stay in the school they love with the friends they love. But now it's time to go. I'm packing. I have so much to do. The bus isn't even registered yet because the DMV was closed due to Covid. We haven't had our shots yet and we're not sure when we can even get them here. But we both realize, especially after this neighbor incident and then watching--or rather, crying through Nomadland, that it's time to go. We're both rather broken, eccentric people. But we long for community and to be among like-minded people.

On the 3rd, I have to pull the skirting off this bus, disconnect it, and take it to a shop a few miles away to have the oil changed and make sure it's ready for the road. Then we have to stick around until the 7th, when my husband's vacation starts. Then we hit the road. Not even sure where we're going yet. I'm scared to death.

--Katt
 
A story teller you are! Welcome to the site and I look forward to hearing about you adventures.
 
Katt said:
On the 3rd, I have to pull the skirting off this bus, disconnect it, and take it to a shop a few miles away to have the oil changed and make sure it's ready for the road. Then we have to stick around until the 7th, when my husband's vacation starts. Then we hit the road. Not even sure where we're going yet. I'm scared to death.

--Katt

Yes, it's scary making such a big change. But - the fact is that change will come to you no matter how you're living, ready or not.

Have faith in yourself. You've met many challenges so far. You can meet this one too.

Jump on in, chances are you'll find that the water is just fine. And if it isn't - you can try something else!
 
Welcome to the CRVL forums! To help you learn the ins and outs of these forums, this "Tips, Tricks and Rules" post lists some helpful information to get you started.

Most of our rules boil down to two simple over-riding principles: 1) What you post should provide good information (like your introductory post), and 2) Any response to someone else's post should make them feel glad they are part of this forum community.

We look forward to hearing more from you.
 
Everyone starts somewhere, and confidence will come from doing.

If your husband relies on internet to work full time, consider purchasing a plan that will give you a reliable connection so you don’t need to rely on campgrounds or public WiFi, which can be very iffy.

Also consider a booster, for when signal is weak.

Others can better advise you on providers and specific plans, but I’m a longtime Verizon customer.

Good luck to you.
 
Tony\ said:
A story teller you are!  Welcome to the site and I look forward to hearing about you adventures.

Thank you :)
 
jacqueg said:
Yes, it's scary making such a big change. But - the fact is that change will come to you no matter how you're living, ready or not.

Have faith in yourself. You've met many challenges so far. You can meet this one too.

Jump on in, chances are you'll find that the water is just fine. And if it isn't - you can try something else!


I used to be the type who would just jump into anything with both feet and not bat an eye. I'm not sure what happened, but at some point in the last few years, anxiety over some things has become almost crippling. I'm working on it though.
 
WanderingRose said:
Everyone starts somewhere, and confidence will come from doing.

If your husband relies on internet to work full time, consider purchasing a plan that will give you a reliable connection so you don’t need to rely on campgrounds or public WiFi, which can be very iffy.

Also consider a booster, for when signal is weak.

Others can better advise you on providers and specific plans, but I’m a longtime Verizon customer.

Good luck to you.


Thank you. I actually have a custom-built tethering system for internet on the road. The current system is set up to use two cell phones that are load balanced, and uses some "tricks" to keep the data used from counting against our tethering allotment. But we use massive amounts of data for work and sometimes even my system gets throttled. I've already been screwed by one company I tried that claimed to provide unlimited data and it was just an expensive nightmare, so I'm hesitant to go the route of buying an expensive LTE modem and "unlimited" service, even if it would give us some signal benefits.

Where we are presently, we were able to get fios, so we are very fortunate. But that's going to end soon, and if my husbands team meetings have even so much as a moderate amount of buffering one too many times, the company is going to make him come back to the office, which will kill this lifestyle for us. I've put a lot of work into this, but still scared that we are going to fail.

Here's our setup. 3D printer, which has come in handy for ALL SORTS of buslife things, is also visible.

SAM_1640.jpg
 

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Katt I’ve met a lot of nomads that have more than one setup for internet just in case. You might want to try something like that. Most nomads I’ve met are pretty open minded and I don’t think your lifestyle will be a problem.
 
Howdy folx,

Appreciate the internet suggestions. I'm Katt's husband Dan, I figured we can share an intro thread as we share a bus. ;)

I work night shift, I manage outages for a data center. If you can't check out, I'm usually the third person to find out. (First is you, second is the guy monitoring that system... third is me, the guy he tells and I wake everyone else up.)

So, that means I run slack channels and zoom meetings all night long, so yeah.... internet isn't an optional thing.

I think I may rent space at an office share as an emergency backup, so I know I always have internet.

We're signed up for the starlink beta, and we've got Katt's 2 cell phone setup (one sprint, one verizon). And if all that fails, I have a work phone I can tether too.

So, we have 4-5 options to get internet, thankfully.

Someone just suggested the officeshare to Katt today, I missed it if it was in this thread, but when she mentioned it to me I realized that is the only foolproof solution.

The difficulty is going to be finding an officeshare that is open from 6pm-4:30 am pst Saturday-Tuesday (My Shift.... and yes, that does mean I'm working right now. ;) )

Outside of work, I'm a pc mmorpg gamer... things like World of Warcraft mostly.... looking forward to Diablo 4. I like making delicious food... I'm a fan of doing everything in my Ninja Foodi right now because of the weather, but I do have a portable smoker in the underbelly. I'm a sucker for horns in music, I played in the jazz band back in high school... still a fan, but I had bells palsy so I haven't played in years.

I was in a car accident in 2013 that messed my hip and back up pretty good. I had the hip replaced about a year ago, and looking forward to finally being able to get outside and actually do things again.

Like Katt said, we're unburying from a mountain of debt. We're slowly getting there, and living this way has definitely been the key.

Look forward to seeing you guys out there.
 
Welcome! There are lots of people on the road doing tech and many good sources if you search. Xcappers (young working tech group of full timers) part of the Escapees Club (Escapees.com) might be a very good place to look.
 
Welcome to the forum :)

Out on the road you will and can meet many like minded roamers like all us here, it is a great life adventure, soak it up and enjoy your life any way you can.

I know when we go on the road we are buying either Dish, Directv, Wingate or other RV 'cable internet' on the road package. Our Verizon phones are good but even with our unlimited data plan we want better internet cause once we hit the limit and they 'lower the power' or whatever they do LOL it gets more sketchy on being kicked off and more so me and hubby chatted and we are going with a portable cable/internet situation. So that is what way we are going, cost is minimal plus we get tv in the package and we just bring it everywhere with us so....

best of luck and hope everything works well for both of you!
 
Cheri and Chris wrote the book for mobile internet, literally. The book expands and updates as technology changes. They have a facebook group. And a members group that provides a lot of perks for members. They've been mobile for over 10 years. Last year they purchased an rv lot in texas to store their bus while they're on their boat. It's more than just a lot and provides a lot of amenities including a casita
Their fb group
https://www.facebook.com/groups/rvinternet/
Their book
https://www.amazon.com/Mobile-Internet-Handbook-Cruisers-Nomads/dp/1984062158/
Their webpage
https://www.rvmobileinternet.com/

They do the research so you don't have to
 
Storytellers welcome!

Good luck with your journey into this lifestyle. As someone who suffers from anxiety myself, i can say that it eventually gets better the more comfortable you become with it. My first night in a Wal-mart parking lot, my mind was all over the place and i barely slept at all. I was running on pure adrenaline the next day. As time passes, i have found that the lifestyle has actually eased my anxiety. Being able to move from one place ot the next always gives me something to think about, and i don't have that idle time to sit and let my mind be overcome with unnecessary clutter. Now i find that its very easy to just crawl into the back of my rig and get a decent nights sleep, and the more crafty i have become over the years, i have found many places to park that are much more conducive to a restful sleep. I hope it has the same effect for you.
 
We're heading to Quartzsite in a few weeks, already reserved out spot and found an internet connection. :)
 
Only cure for fear and anxiety is to live/ confront what you are afraid of. In this case there is no monster under that particular bed. So just get on with it and when you feel that way literally tell yourself "enough of this, just get on with the program". You are the only person in control of self talk, no one else on the planet can put a stopper in that unwanted stuff you keep on telling yourself. If someone else was in your face saying it to you then you would tell them to stop saying it. But few realize you can effectively say "stop that" to your own negative brain chatter. That is a behaviorist psychology basic treatment for fear, depression and anxiety. Cost nothing to do, but it takes a few weeks of effort and practice to shut down that self harming talk. So get on with it and quit making yourself so scared.
 
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