The Urge to Escape

It is not lost on me that we are not the only ones feeling stuck, trapped, and itching for monumental change right now.

On Thursday June 17th we packed up and moved out of a close-to-home and comfortable campground in Eagan, Minnesota and drove nearly 4 hours to the north shore. Until then it felt a little bit like pretend camping. Even though we fully moved out of our house and purged most of our belongings, it only started to feel real when we all traveled in our rig for the first time away from places we knew well.

That same day, the New York Times parenting newsletter (the same one that prompted my July op-ed piece) detailed a handful of families’ big pandemic-induced moves – across the country, across the world, and yes, into an RV. The part of the story that described one family’s failed move into a 19-foot Winnebago was rife with ridicule and judgment, as if anyone in their right mind could see that the idea was doomed from the start.

It may be obvious, but the Winnebago family’s rationale certainly resonated with me. They felt “suffocated” and trapped in their home life, scarred from a year of instability and homebound chaos. They jumped into #vanlife after asking themselves- “when would we be able to do this again?” Their thoughts are my thoughts.

But haven’t we all felt a longing to escape?

While the past year brought these thoughts to a head, I am convinced the pandemic only exacerbated what has been there all along.

In Travels with Charley in Search of America, John Steinbeck writes about “a burning desire to go, to move… anyplace, away from any Here.” Steinbeck writes that as he traveled he found very few people so content with what they were doing that they didn’t want to be somewhere else.

Travels with Charley was first published in 1962, well before phones and social media ruined our posture and captivated our free time, before the pressures to overschedule ourselves and our kids, and before catch phrases like “burnout” and “languishing” became accepted and expected in everyday conversations. Yet Steinbeck’s observations back then persist today.

I posit that it is not restlessness that is new in the post-covid era but rather urgency. A YOLO-esque awakening that was brought on by the global pandemic; by witnessing friends and family sickened and struggling. An urgency to do what you always thought you wanted to do, what you imagined yourself doing and haven’t yet gotten around to.

I’ve seen it play out in my circles alone through those who have quit jobs to find something more rewarding, those who finally decided to make that move across the country; some friends got married, and others are building their dream home somewhere new.

Living and traveling in an RV is us living out our deep-seated desire to move away from Here, made possible by the urgency of now.

Steinbeck asked - “Could it be that Americans are a restless people, a mobile people, never satisfied with where they are as a matter of selection?”

According to us, now, in this time – yes.