A question that I'm getting a lot about this whole new adventure of living on the boat is "But what about your business?" and "What's *The Plan*"?
I hate to think of letting this glorious, amazing space sit empty. I am incredibly frustrated that my husband put so much time and effort into making this the kind of space that we wanted to be in if we're not even going to be here to use it. I hate the thought of giving up on my business idea after putting soooo much time and money (and anxiety!!!) over the last 6 months into it.
BUT (you know I'll always have a big butt ... hardy har har) I wouldn't want to put a year or more into building a business and then have to leave it even MORE. And yeah, if there was a way back machine that would take me back 6 months, I'd have decided against trying to open a business right now anyway. It is what it is. I can only make a decision from where I'm at right now.
I don't know if it will be making enough money to sustain itself by the time we leave, so I can just hire a manager to take over while we travel for a bit. I don't know if it will still just be limping along at the same money-draining pace it is at right now. I don't know what decision we'll have to make here in the next few months as we prepare to take off on this new adventure.
And we really don't have a concrete plan to close the business at this point. We don't really have a concrete plan about anything long term at all. The "Plan" is essentially to go spend a few weeks on a boat to see if we like it. The kids and I have been on a boat only once or twice. And that was a small speed boat and a short trip. We may hate it, we may love it.The point at which we've spent 3-4 weeks on a boat... THAT is when we will make longer term plans.
If we hate it, then Patrick will finish updating and fixing up the boat and we'll sell it at a profit (one reason we looked for a really good deal on a fixer upper boat in the first place), or we'll like it well enough to spend our winters on the water OR we'll love it and decide to stay on it for as long as we want to.
I imagine that it will be very similar to living on the bus. Other than the financial stresses and lack of contact (this was pre-everyone has a cell phone-and service everywhere and definitely pre-internet access on the road!) we were dealing with, living on the bus was AMAZING. Until it wasn't. There was a time after 2 1/2-3 years when suddenly we were 'done'. I think the boat experience will probably be pretty much the same. At this point, the kids are all old enough or almost old enough that they'll be able to make that decision whenever they're ready. That's a big part of the reason we want to go NOW. Because our three youngest kids are very interested in trying it out, too, and they're in the prime time of life to give it a try. They don't have jobs or apartments that they can't leave (unlike our oldest son). They don't have families yet (like our oldest daughter) that would make it hard for them to leave. This is a fantastic time for them to take a break from the "norm" and have one more adventure with us as a family before they decide what they want to to with their 'adulthood'. One of them might get tired of it or hate it and decide to come back to Oklahoma. One of them might fall in love with Australia and want to live there... the thing is, I don't KNOW what is going to happen. I don't know what is going to happen if we were to stay here.
Our lives are always surprising us, and that is perfectly fine with me. I like surprises, as long as I don't know they're coming ;)
