I Named My Van After A Tiger

Every adventure van needs a name. And I have found the name for mine...

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Custom stickers designed by me, created by @stikwitit

The Background Story:

People tell me, "Congratulations!" When they hear about how I'm living in a van.

I think it's pretty ironic. The idea of living in your own car used to be like the all-time low bar of living. People live in their cars when they lose their job and can't pay the rent.

You can live in your car too! You're literally one eviction away from #vanlife.

I do admit I fantasized about the convenience of living in a van every time I had to hit the Craigslist ads when I was moving to a new city. But once I decided to take the plunge, I did not feel like it was anything to really fantasize about.

I was scared of doing it by myself, especially because I felt that living in the city would be even more scary. I'm way more scared of other people than of being in the wilderness alone. 

I knew it was going to be pretty primitive because I did not have the money to throw down in an actual conversion. I bought a van that was the closest to a converted van I could find (1999 GMC Savana high top already comes with shelves in the topper). I use portable batteries to charge my phone at night, but rely on charging it throughout the day off the battery as I drive. I have a headlamp and some crappy dollar store push-button lights that I use for lighting at night, but I mostly just pass out as soon as it's dark anyway.

It's been two months since I bought the van and built a bed frame for it and one month since I moved in the van. In that time, I've both hated it and wanted to drive it off a cliff, and I've also fallen in love with it. It's a pretty crazy feeling when things are tough I found myself reverting back to my previous fantasies about driving far, far away into the sunset. But now my reality is literally my "driving off into the sunset" fantasy, sooo... what am I supposed to do now?  Fantasize about driving home?? Hahaha, yeah right... And that's why living in a van is actually growing on me. Because it really is that sense of freedom that everyone wants but few have the balls to actually do.

It's been a learning and humbling experience. Through this I have realized some weaknesses of my own that I need to work on. The biggest thing that I have been thinking about lately is trying to get out of the "grass is greener" mindset and being more present, in the moment, grateful, and happy with the little things that I do have. I am a pretty ambitious person and when I get into something I go all out, so this experience is forcing me to be more chill and go with the flow. And it's also way better than dealing with the psycho house hunting battlefield that is Colorado.

The Present Story:

Every adventure van needs a name. And I have found the name for mine...

My experiences remind me of a book that I read called, The Life of Pi. It's a pretty amazing movie, too. In the book the main character, Pi, traveled on a ship with his zookeeper parents and a lot of their animals. The ship wrecked and Pi spent 227 days on a life raft with a Tiger named Richard Parker and some other animals (spoiler alert: the other animals ended up dying).

The animal characters in the book can be taken both literally and symbolic. If you google what the significance of Richard Parker is, this comes up,
 
Richard Parker is also the symbolic manifestation of Pi's duality. Yes, he has a civilized human side, but he also has a savage side that surfaces when survival mode kicks in. Because this savage side is hard to accept or deal with, Pi creates his alter ego, Richard Parker.(*)

If you want to geek out on more parallel's of the symbolism of the tiger in the book, then check out this website here.

And that's what brings me back to my life...

I got this van because I got in some bad deals and car accident this winter. I had plans to move to Colorado, race, and work, and knew that I needed to save some money with the ridiculous Front Range rent prices.

The van is my life raft. And what the van represents, and my relationship and attitude about living in a van is Richard Parker; the freaking tiger on the life raft that I'm trying to live with! It's pretty amazing that I get to experience being on a life raft with a tiger. I would much rather be with a tiger than alone in a life raft, but I'm also at the mercy of the tiger and have to try and make sure that we have a harmonious relationship.

Yeah, I spend a lot of time alone with my thoughts. #glamorouslyhomeless