It is 4:41am Monday morning . I have a freshly brewed cup of coffee and music playing softly in the background from one of my many playlists on YouTube. It's been months since I've sat down to write anything more substantial than a grocery list and I am a little nervous about how long it might take for the muscle memory to kick in for me. Writing, much like playing guitar, just seemed to come naturally for me when I started doing it. 

Today is a momentous day for me in that it signals the beginning of the end of what most of society would consider 'civilized' life. I'm moving out of the house I'm renting on Friday and I have this week to wrap up the usual trappings of living in a house. Severing my ties with the electric provider and my internet service. I also have to get my rental washer and dryer picked up before I leave.

     Where will I be moving to, you may well ask? That's a complicated answer for many reasons. I'm moving into my car, a 2004 Nissan Xterra SUV.

Sounds crazy, doesn't it? Truthfully, it's much more sane than you may believe at first. According to society, I will be homeless and I suppose by the strictest definition, that is entirely true. I have decided to opt out of the normal definition of civilized life in favor of a new paradigm, one that affords me more freedom but does come with its own special challenges. In all honesty, those challenges are only slightly different than living in a house.

Perhaps a little back story is in order here, not much but enough to set the scene a little better.

After my marriage broke up last year, I was devastated and disillusioned as many of us are but I was facing being alone at 60 years old and I was not prepared for the fear I felt at being alone. I held on for as long as I could and worked the job, paid the bills but drifted through my life feeling hollowed out without a clear path for the future.

While perusing YouTube one day a few months later, I chanced upon a video featuring a man named Bob Wells, a man famous for advocating life off the grid, outside the usual definition of traditional life.

He talked passionately about leaving the traditional life behind and going off the grid by living in an RV, a van or any other vehicle big enough to convert to a 'home on wheels'. He pointed out the flaws of modern life; buying a house, acquiring wealth and possessions and slowing giving up your personal freedom for the comforts afforded by living in a house.

His narrative spoke to me on a deeper level than anything I had believed before. I began to see how trapped I was. I was working a job I hated for more hours than I wanted, just to have the privilege of living in a house.

His philosophy reached me and slowly I began to see how much freedom I had sacrificed because of my own greed and my unyielding belief in the system.

I realized I had placed more value in possessions than in experiences. The truly memorable experiences of my life didn't happen in a house, they happened in the world and I had turned my back on the world in favor of amassing stuff. All that stuff forced me to stay where I was and slowly began to erode my sense of individuality and freedom.

It took about two weeks and I was sold on the idea of leaving the straight life behind in favor of freedom. I watched as many videos I  could about moving into my car to see if I could actually do it and realized it wasn't as bad as I thought it was.

There will be challenges, to be sure, but that's true wherever you live be it a house, a tent or a mansion.

I began gathering the things I would need to convert my car into a mini camper. Most of what I used to do it came right from my house. I repurposed an old futon mattress for a bed that turned out to be quite comfortable. I grabbed some blankets, pillows and my sleeping bag, owing to the fact that winter was fast approaching.

Having settled my sleeping arrangements, I turned to the matter of eating in my car. This turned out to be much easier than I had imagined. There are people who cook in their vehicles but that presents some special challenges and dangers that I wasn't ready to deal with. I opted instead for instant foods that required no cooking and snacks to keep the hunger at bay. I can stow two gallons of water for coffee and eating so that problem was solved.

The matter of entertainment was easy as well. Since I will not have access to reliable WIFI whenever I want, I decided to use my tablet and an external hard drive filled with movies and TV shows. I also bought a portable DVD player using the money from an old Amazon gift card that I'd forgotten I had. I already had a huge CD wallet that I kept DVDs in so that problem was solved.

The bigger problem was recharging all the devices I use. I found a temporary solution by buying a device that will accept a Dewalt 20v battery that will output enough power to charge small devices but I knew I would need something more expensive to solve all my power issues. This will require an item called a portable power bank and the preferred mfr. is a company called Jackery. I found one on Facebook Marketplace for cheap and bought that as well.

I discovered, to my chagrin, that my sleeping bag was not rated for really cold weather so I bought one that was. I got one that's a mummy style bag rated for 20 degrees and that will suffice nicely considering the winters in Georgia are not particularly harsh at all.

I found some groups on Facebook that were extremely helpful in getting me ready for car life and I gleaned some great information to solve all the problems I saw coming for me.

I have no illusions that living in a car will be easy but with the proper planning it can be reasonably comfortable and problem free if I take the proper precautions.

I have a lot to do today so I will stop here and continue later to give a fuller picture of what led me to this decision.

Stay tuned and look into what it's like to live in your car. Share my successes and my failures and decide for yourself just how crazy I am.