Well, as ridiculous as that sounded to the SNL audience during the halcyon days of the early 90s robust economy, it's not so shameful anymore. In fact, based on the number of YouTube channels devoted to this, and each with a healthy dose of subs and views, it seems "Van Life" is more popular than ever.
The past few days I've been starting to get really antsy, recalling the many times I've been down this road before. In fact, if you recall, the last time I was near to living in my car was just before I got the most recent job that I held onto for over seven years.
I remember looking around at my possessions then, back in that little house in Lake Mary by the water, and thinking "What happens to all this?" And that was just a single room of stuff. Now I've got at least three times more stuff that I'd accumulated over the past seven years.
There are about three very different paths that I could wander down, as I see it, and they each have their pros and cons.
1. Run Forrest, Run. I could say "fuck it" and sell as much of my shit as I can, rack up my credit cards, including the maximum cash advances and let them burn. Take the personal loans BOA and AMEX keep offering me without any intention of making a single payment. Cash out my 403b. Sell my car and buy a van conversion. Break my lease and roll outta Florida altogether. I calculated that these decidedly dramatic actions would net me a stack of cash to the tune of about $100,000. I could drive to Mexico and live out of my van there cheap. Barring getting robbed, it might last the rest of my life.
2. Put Nose to Grindstone. Man up, drop the boozing and gluttony. Shore up frivolous expenses and use this "downtime" effectively. Spending the time and effort and doing it right, I should be able to find a job that will either get me by until another, better income source comes along or really try to grab a secure, good-paying job that I actually like and can feel valued doing. Right now it's early enough in this stint of unemployment where I haven't really disrupted my financial firmament and getting back on track to the goals of buying a house within a year would be again on my metaphorical whiteboard.
3. Salt Life. No, not like the beachbum lifestyle (that'd be someplace like Andy's Zihuatanejo with option #1). I'm thinking of the story of Lot's wife who couldn't help but look back at Sodom and Gomorrah despite God's warning. If I get fixated on the fears and loathing that drove me to so much indecision and consternation in the past, I'd just as well be turned into a pillar of salt. Watching helplessly as everything comes, slowly at first, but then quite rapidly before long, crashing down around me.
Unless I get really lucky with an option 2 miracle, I know this is the start of another Koyo. Or, maybe I never was out of the Koyo I've been in? Maybe everyone's in their own, endless, lifelong Koyo? Some visibly so, some keeping it in check. Life = Koyo. Hmmm. I guess it all makes sense somehow.