FIVE YEARS. Five years as a nomad from a creature of habit and familiarity.
Five Years a Nomad. Divorce, Empty Nest, Pandemic, Mid-Life, 50s. The Perfect Storm!
This is extraordinary to me. I was the ultimate creature of habit, routines, and familiarity. I chose to live at home and go to UC Santa Barbara so as not to have to leave home. Who insisted my parents recreate my exact bedroom down to the floral wallpaper when we moved houses at my high school graduation. Who chose to move back to my hometown, married, with two kids (ages 1 and 3), to have them grow up close to their grandparents, and ultimately attend my very same high school.
I created photo albums (journals really) and scrapbooks documenting every minute of my life and my children’s (even before social media!). I had a difficult time parting with any remnant of their childhood. Heck, I even had saved my Barbies and stuffed animals!
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Family Home of 20 Years – (Opposite of a Nomad)
I created a home out of our house of twenty years. Full of traditions and love. We had my husband’s grandparents’ piano where the kids took lessons (not very happily), and my parents’ dining set and china cabinet filled with all of the requisite crystal and china that one was expected to acquire (and never use). It was also full of inexpensive but meaningful treasures collected on all of my travels before marriage, and then ones collected on our exotic family trips.
There was the gorgeous Indonesian massive bookcase that I used the small inheritance from my grandmother’s death (she was an avid reader and writer who paid us $1 if we would write a story or a poem for her). It was full to the brim with my books.
I was never precious about redecorating or upgrading. We kept the same carpet for twenty years, my same bedroom set that I bought as a first year teacher at 23 years old, and my daughter even used my childhood bedroom set until we finally upgraded her to the Pottery Barn Teen set at last.
Our one big splurge was the “Alice in Wonderland” custom wrap around pleather sofa that filled the unusually narrow living room. It was so big, we hadn’t realized it wouldn’t fit in any doorway. After three unsuccessful attempts with different services, it was an underground crew that dismantled the kitchen sliding doors to eventually get it in. We figured it woud never leave the house.
The Storage Unit begins and the Last Christmas
Cut to Christmas 2019. I had secretly obtained my 10×10 storage unit and had started putting only personal (pre-marriage) belongings in it. After a dreadful three year separation living under the same roof after the discovery that my hubby had chosen another (“T1”), I had finally found the courage to file for divorce in June 2019. That is a whole other story documented in earlier posts. So, there was the Last Christmas which nearly destroyed me. A person of traditions, knowing that twenty years of Christmas in the family home was coming to an end. The kids were home from college. This Empty Nest was a very dark place. After that, I put “Christmas” in the storage unit. It has never come out again. A Nomad was born.
February 2020 Fled to Scotland
February 2020 I took two suitcases, left the family home, and went to the U.K. where I’d found a bit of refuge with the Scottish “Rogue”, and in Dublin where my son was in University in Ireland. It was pure escape from the tortuous divorce. I don’t have to cue the music for the pandemic unleashing its fury and changing the entire world’s plans.
Cue the Music – March 2020 – The Pandemic
I was forced back on the last flights out of Edinburgh and then Dublin on March 24, 2020. Ex had lockdowned in the family home. No way was I joining him at this point, mid extremely contentious divorce proceedings. It was also the time of the 14 day mandatory Isolation. Thus I started in my first Airbnb (immortalized in “Quarantine Chronicles” in this blog). I still had no idea I’d turn into a long term “Nomad”.
Never to Return to the Family Home
Little did I know, I would NEVER go back to my family home. After “Quarantine Cottage” and then “Casa de Coco” (all blog posts), the divorce finalized Christmas Eve, 2020. Ex had bought me out of the house. It was now his, and his next new woman (“T2”) lived there with him. The pain of this was indescribable. I literally blocked it out and ran away with the Rogue to Mexico for three months, then on the Road Trip Across America and back (another three months) and so on. (All documented in the blog).
Second Chapter Nomad was born.
January 2025 – Five years later, as horrendous L.A. wildfires raged, destroying over 14,000 homes, I’m reflecting. On the one hand, there is a tremendous sense of relief that I have no home to burn. Not many possessions to lose anymore, just what’s in that 10×10 aluminum shed (which I think is fire proof?).
Over those next few years, Ex got rid of that original bedroom set, the custom sofa (wonder how he got it out of the house?), my parents’ dining set, the piano. All donated I presume, as not worth anything. I did go over one day to divide up that meaningless china, piece by piece (where my half currently sits packed in storage). We burned the wedding candle, and actually drank a glass of champagne out of our wedding flutes. Se la vie. My photo albums and scrapbooks that I created of my kids’ lives are still there in the “family home”, not burned, but I haven’t seen them in five years.
I feel for the people experiencing such tremendous loss. It’s horrendous.
Hope, Mindfulness, Untethered
I do want to impart a shred of hope to those who lost physical belongings. Five years on, the wounds have healed for the most part. All of my possessions, and times in the family home, are but beautiful memories. No one can take them from my mind where they’ll reside forever. And thank goodness now for digital photos up in the Cloud and on devices.
I was forced, and then have chosen, to live a life of mindfulness, in the present moment. It’s why I continue to travel, untethered and free. To read books, and to write. To experience life in the most positive way I choose, collecting memories instead of possessions, adventures instead of furniture, spending time with people instead of mundance house chores.
Kentish Town, London – The Cat Sit
March 20, 2025 – Update from when I wrote the above, deeply affected by those suffering the California wildfires. I am nearly two months into my catsit in Kentish Town. I needed/wanted to be back in London for February and March, and I literally manifested it into existence as a London friend needed the exact same time for someone to care for her home and beloved cat Ginger.
Familiarity as a Nomad
I am starting to retrace steps. See that pattern of familiarity? Even as a nomad I return to the same hotels, pubs, restauarants, cafes. I plant my beloved books (that I used to store in that gorgeous bookcase in the family home) in pub librarys where I visit them (or sometimes someone will take them which is great to share a good read!), hotel lobbies, and to charity bookshops.
I pulled all my winter clothes out of the storage unit and brought them to the “cat house”. Never will I, and I have not worn them in five years. So I happily got them covered in cat hair, read in the cozy chair, and will donate them all here in London when I leave.
I buy inexpensive new clothes when necessary and donate/recyle them if I don’t love them. I only buy essentials like hair, skin and makeup products that I use on a daily basis.
The Minimal Life
This minimal life suits me. All of my time and energy goes into enjoying the moment, embracing where I am today. Phone calls “home”, reading, writing, saying YES to invitations, being “Second Chapter Nomad” embracing adventures every day, experiences, focusing on fitness, good food and drink, friends and family.
Five years a nomad. And no end in sight.
Below are a number of blog posts documenting the beginning of the nomad life in the pandemic. Thoughts on mid-life divorce, empty nest, and nomad life realities. In the overall blog, you can find my book reviews (my passion!) and travel blog posts from this surreal time of freedom and travel I have experienced in the past five years. I’m working on turning this into a book. Stay tuned, please enjoy ,and reach out!
First in a series of Quarantine Chronicles 2020
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