There’s A Lesson In All The Rainy Dreary Days Of (Van)Life

As I mosey my way back to The Homeland I encounter several rainy days and nights. At times, I wonder if the rain will ever stop.

The rain mixed with cold weather doesn’t make for a fun time. There are cold, rainy days that I don’t step foot outside the van.

All this rain reminds me of a Thanksgiving gone by when I spent 3 days holed up in the van due to torrential downpours.

In This Post

I’ll share the story and reflections about being alone in my van for 3 days straight.

A Thanksgiving To Remember

In November 2017, I was in Kingsland, Georgia over Thanksgiving weekend.

After getting settled in to my campsite, I went inside the van.

It started raining just seconds after shutting the door behind me.

Over the next three days, southeast Georgia was blanketed with a torrential, non-stop downpour.

Heavy rain pounding on the metal roof of the van was the worst part. So as not to go insane, I quickly learned to block out the relentless thunkity-thunk on the rooftop.

While Snuggled Safe And Dry Inside The Van

My self-converted camper van has everything I need… a porta-potti, stove, fridge, water and more. There’s no need to go outside and get soaking wet only to have wet clothes hanging inside the van.

Over the next three days I occupied my time by cooking Thanksgiving dinner and/or reheating leftovers, calling family, hanging out with friends online, watching movies and doing stretches here and there to limber up.

Most of all, I simply enjoyed being by myself!

By the time the rain ended, there was a small moat around my little home on wheels.

Rainy Dreary Days Serve A Purpose

Our days tend to be filled with endless (sometimes needless) activities.

In the craziness of life, we get distracted and overwhelmed.

A dreary day gives us the perfect opportunity to stay inside, reflect, chill out and/or tend to some much needed self-care.

Alone vs Lonely (A Pet Peeve)

There seems to be a false societal perception that being alone means you’re lonely. When you add living alone in a van to the mix, some will assume you’re even more lonesome.

I’m not sure why living in a van makes a difference on the loneliness scale. But, this seems to be the consensus of those who’ve asked if I get lonely living by myself in a van.

Being alone and being lonely can intertwine but they are two entirely separate concepts.

• Being alone is a state of existence. Aloneness is a reflection of your outer world – meaning you are by yourself with no one else currently around you.
• Being lonely is an emotion. Loneliness is a reflection of your inner world – such as being sad because you feel left out.

Just because you’re alone doesn’t mean you’re lonely. Nor does being lonely mean you’re alone.

There are plenty of people sitting in crowded rooms who feel lonely.

On the other hand, it’s not unheard of for a lady to be alone in her van for 3 days straight and not feel a tinge of loneliness.

I’ve Had Plenty Of Practice Being Alone

To be fair, I have years of practice being alone and have learned how to overcome loneliness.

Being alone comes naturally to me (now).

• I’m an introvert and need my alone time to recharge. You don’t want to mess with an introvert who hasn’t had their alone time!
• I have MCS (Multiple Chemical Sensitivities). For the sake of my health, I need to stay away from toxic-to-me air. Where there are crowds of people, there’s potentially toxic-to-me air.
• In mid-2007, the friends whom I regularly hung out with alienated me during the worst, most life threatening, life altering phase of my illness. There’s more to the story but this event was a catalyst in my overcoming a life challenge or two.

Choosing To Overcome

When my MCS worsened and the “friendless issue” happened… I was bitter. I blamed other’s and had plenty of heavy duty pity-parties.

My negativity pushed me further in to the bottomless pit of hopelessness and despair.

Negativity and pity-parties are not helpful in living your best life.

I grew tired of being negative about the hand life dealt me.

If I were going to live my best life… I had to make a change.

Over the course of time, I learned how to look at life from a more positive perspective.

Realizing I’m not such a bad person to be alone with, I learned how to be ok being alone with myself.

You never know what you’re capable of until you have no choice but to do it.

Parting Thoughts

I wasn’t expecting a story about spending rainy dreary days in the van to turn into a life lesson about overcoming life’s challenges… but that’s how it panned out.

Life will toss in plenty of rainy dreary days… and so will Mother Nature.

The key to overcoming rainy gloomy days and the rainy gloomy phases of life is learning to see the rain as an opportunity rather than an obstacle.

We may not always like the rain but there’s always a bright side to every rainy dreary day that comes along!

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