Stock Family Trip : The spaces between the lines

Our kids, like us, need downtime every now and then to recharge. Living in a travel trailer can have it's downsides, even under the best of circumstances. Privacy... fugetaboutit! Alone time... LOL! Our living room, dining room and kitchen are all connected, and a special magnifying acoustic door separates the bathroom from those rooms. We not only know what each of us eats, but how quickly each of us processes those meals. Space is at a premium and quiet time is cherished. Thankfully our family has been traveling together a lot over past few years, so hearing toots is nothing new.
On a daily basis, my wife plans the details of our travels and I fix the things that break. We split housework between the four of us. I do the driving when the rig is hooked-up. Elise does the shopping when we are camped. Sometimes she is gone for several hours at a time buying paper towels or cereal.
We usually don't question what each other does because things inevitably pop up. For example, when we came home from Zion National Park we were exhausted after many miles of hiking. Sierra's cat looked odd and the cat knew we were looking at her so she tried to run away. Elise pounced on the cat as we saw something that looked like a beige piece of yarn stuck on the cat's rear end. Upon much much closer examination we realized it was actually a tapeworm oozing it's way out of her posterior. Sierra grabbed some wet wipes and started to pull on the fettuccine looking worm for a while until she couldn't handle the stench anymore and shouted, "Daddy please take over I can't breathe!" So I assumed the position and yanked on the slithering beast while the cat was meowing 4 letter words at us. After pulling out a good couple feet of the foulest smelling worm I've ever had the pleasure of sniffing, my wife chimed in by yelling, "I can't hold her anymore, get it out!" All this commotion occurred while my wife was gagging uncontrollably. While I was tugging on our cat's large intestines our trailer was rocking, there was lots of sailor-like swearing and panicked meowing. I am truly surprised our neighboring RVers didn't call child protective services on us. Alas, I pulled on that rubbery, moist, smelly, beige worm until it popped out or snapped. I am still not sure which one happened, for the cat scurried under the couch to gather her thoughts after being so violated. We quickly disposed of the worm and rushed out to get medicine for all of our animals. All of this became a family affair because we live in such tight quarters.
Don't get me wrong, there are good things about this lifestyle as well. We are seeing incredible places, meeting wonderful people, and falling in love with our country all over again. How cool is that? When we left the U.S., in February of 2015, on our drive to South America we just wanted to live some of our bucket list. We weren't angry at our country. Rather, we were disappointed in ourselves and how neglectful we had become about not living our own dreams. We eventually realized that our energy went to where our thoughts were. We woke up with our mental to-do list and it stayed with us all day, and who knows, maybe they even lingered into our dreams. Our energy followed our thoughts until either one got drained. We realized that our quiet times, back then, were actually recovery times and not truly detached quiet times.
What occurred during our trip in Latin America is we discovered a serenity, in us, that we longed for. Our energy focused on better thoughts. You know, the kind of happy thoughts, like what do you want to be when you grow up, kind of thoughts. Should we turn left at the intersection or go straight? Unless we had a certain place to be, the path was irrelevant. This was so wildly different to our fully planned and wholey maximized days before, when every path was relevant and impacted our to-do lists.
Though private space is limited in the RV, we still need to ensure the kids have their own quiet times. As we eventually find a town to call home and become integrated, in the U.S. again, it's important to recognize the fragility of our happiness. We want to remind our daughters that happiness is like a garden and it needs regular tending.
The four of us were recently talking about our goal of incorporating what we've learned abroad to our new lives here. It will be daunting at first but it has to occur. Sometimes words can't fully describe the feeling of receiving a blown kiss from across the room or feeling the disappointment of your father's exhale. We need to remind ourselves that there is so much depth in what can't be spoken and untold stories in the spaces between the lines.

While in Durango our girls made their first friends since returning to the U.S. Considering what our kids have gone through, this made us feel great to see them rebuilding what they lost in Nicaragua. These girls and their parents are setting the stage for long-term travels as well, and we wish them the best.