I don't remember quite how this dream began.
I only know what it's developed into at this point.
I think I can speculate how it started, but I don't remember the first time I saw a Tiny House or even the way I heard about them. I honestly think it was an accident of the internet - searching RVs one day, and boom: there's a tiny house. Of course, being who I am, I needed to know more. More. MORE.
A couple years ago (with some help), I came to the conclusion that the path I was trying to walk might not be the one that would make me the most happy. It might make me happy, but there might also be better paths that I was blinding myself to because I was so focused on this one thing.
Then there's the question of: but how do I accomplish all the things I want?
How do I travel? Write? Teach? Learn? How do I do that and manage not to stay in one place?
An RV? Yes! An RV!
Cue the Google Machine.
Google: RV.
More Googling of RVs.
More.
And BAM. I'm assuming somewhere in there was my first glimpse of a tiny house and it was probably love at first sight.
Now I've got an obsession. For what it's worth, I'm really determined to build a tiny house that I can ride around in and take with me wherever I choose to go.
But it runs much deeper than that.
When I graduated from college, I was fortunate enough to find a job in my field. It wasn't ideal and I wasn't making a whole hell of a lot of money, and I was dipping into my savings monthly to make ends meet. I knew it wasn't sustainable long term, but I was enjoying the independence of having my own apartment, even though that apartment was merely a place I went to lay my head and that was about it.
I had no sense of connection to that place. It took me almost the entire 15months that I'd lived there to really unpack (ok I never fully unpacked), and even after most of the way into my stay there I just shuffled boxes into a closet. It took me months to call my apartment "home." I really just referred to it as "my apartment."
Toward the latter half of my stay, I began to realize I was getting stir crazy in one place. I'd been in this town on-and-off for a long, long time, and that wasn't normal. I spent a lot of time as a kid moving from one house to another and another, and I liked the constant change. I liked the freedom and the new-ness, and the way everything took a little getting used to, but always in a really cool kind of way. Like having a new laptop. Or a new puppy.
But there was something lacking. Some giant void that wasn't making any sense.
It wasn't mine.
Sure, the things in it were mine. The couch I'd purchased brand new and on clearance from a big brand-name furniture store. The desk my dad and I found at this super cool antique store. My bedroom set that was the most pain-in-the-ass thing to move, ever. (I'm going to have to sell it to live in the tiny house, and that sucks, but it is what it is.)
The things were mine.
But the apartment wasn't. I'm not even sure I really tried to make it mine.
My best friend Josh and I had painted the large focus wall in my living room gray. I set up bookshelves, and beyond just filling them with books I also covered the shelves in knick-knacks. I never got farther than that in terms of decorating. I didn't hang pictures or even my degree. I just didn't have love enough for it, I guess.
It just never felt like it was an extension of myself.
Then I came to the realization that I don't know if I've ever felt like a "home" was really "mine." Like a home was home.
Home isn't about where you are, anyway. I've lived in enough different houses, apartments, duplexes to know that they're all four-walls and brick-and-mortar. The important part about a house is not it's features, it's the people you share it with. And if you don't share it with anyone, is it really a home?
I have the hardest time feeling at home in new houses. It takes me a good long time to refer to places as "home." Unless I'm with people I love.
Then it's completely and utterly different.
"Home" is my parents' house.
It's my "home"town where most of my family lives.
"Home" is the time I spent in Mississippi & with my friends in Tennessee.
"Home" is where I currently stay in FL, even though I could really do without the heat.
It's the places I grew up, and the memories I have, and the people I love. It's not a structure. It's not a building. It's not a thing.
I think home is an emotion, a tradition, people, and most of all - love.
I'm not sure if anyone has ever experienced the strange feeling of "this place feels like some other far away place," but I have that feeling all the time. Sometimes summer nights in FL feel like sitting on the porch at night in MS. Sometimes July feels like driving to Krispy Kreme in TN. Sometimes NPR feels like L-Town and sometimes I'll be driving down the road in FL and have the sense that I am back in Columbia, MS. I don't know why, or how those connections formed, but I've bonded places with emotions and sensations. I want to bridge more of those, and truly discover America.
I want to discover home.
So, partially due to my crazy inability to form bonds to places, I decided I wanted to build my own "place." My own slice of life, and I am hoping that if I somehow have a hand in the design and fabrication of my "place", that it will become an extension of me and be mine, and then having ownership of it might make it feel a little more like "home." At any rate, I would be able to hitch it up and take it to the places I truly call home, and then it would maybe make even more sense.
Even more, I want to travel - to see new places and meet new people, and write it all down so others can experience it with me. I hope that this blog can lend some insight into the Tiny House building process and what truly goes into it.
Beyond that, I'd like to meet new and interesting people who are also going tiny (or have made the switch to tiny already) and have inspiration, advice, and wisdom to offer. My hope is that I will discover not only what it means to be "home", but to also discover America, discover new people and new ideas, and to reach out into a community of people who feel similar to myself so that I might learn ways to inspire others who may be hesitant to make the leap of "going tiny."
On this Tumblr, I plan to share my thoughts and inspirations, photos and helpful blogposts, and anything regarding tiny houses that I might find to be useful later. I'd like to showcase all parts of the "tiny house movement." Including positives and challenges, so that people have a realistic idea of what this is all about.
I welcome questions and e-mails ([email protected]) and conversations. I would love to speak with and meet new people who are also either beginning or have entered this journey, so PLEASE don't hesitate to e-mail or send me some asks on Tumblr.
