I am going to start off by saying that these blog posts will be written by me, Brooke. This blog will be a space where I can share my thoughts more intimately. So lets begin…..oh and I am also aware of my horrible grammar, but it is the thought that counts right?
I have two kids. Rooney and Penn. On one hand I have Rooney, who wants to be a “police women in a campsite” when she grows up and on the other hand I have Penn, who tells me “momma I don’t want to work. I want to have fun. Everyone that works never has fun”. I laugh when he tells me this and ask him how he’s going to pay for his fun? He looks at me perplexed like I asked a very uneducated question and simply tells me “well momma you are, it’ll be amazing.” He giggles knowing that he got me to laugh, but very much believes that I am going to fund his fun life. I mean how hard can it be? When I’m out of cash he tells me to walk in to the money store and take some more money from the magic money machine. Simple right?
Aside from the multitude of complex moving parts that goes in to a major lifestyle change such as becoming a live aboard, Penn is not far off from a very accurate observation. I see a lot of people work and I see a lot of them that never have fun. They dream easily as children, but then as the harsh expected standards of the real world set in, those easy dreams are put to rest. They usually remain as dreams. I use the word “they” because it is a broadly cast net for the average human being. However, there are exceptions. There are always exceptions. Exceptions are the reason people keep dreaming because they see that dreams can become a reality, at least for that one exception they idolize. This concept is what leads us to live vicariously through someone else. While I have my idols, I never wanted to be a “they”. I want to be the exception. So how does one push aside reality and make a dream come true? Good question. Every dream starts with a question right? Because opposition is what eventually leads us to dreaming of a different life scenario, which then leads us to asking ourself serious questions. Am I happy? Is this all there is to life? Is this what I want to do forever?
The first question I usually get asked is “why did you decide to do this?” A fair question. My family and I live on a boat. A Nordhavn 55ft ocean trawler. I have not always lived on a boat though. I lived in a house, a nice house, in Newport Beach, California. Braden has a successful insurance business and I am a successful photographer. We have two kids and we were relatively happy. While in my own mind, I think it’s pretty self explanatory to why I would choose this life, others were confused. They started asking me questions. Lots of them. “Brooke, why would you leave everything you know and everything that’s going well for you?”. “Why would your husband step away from a successful job?” That’s the problem. It was going well, but it wasn’t going amazing. Maybe it’s part of the millennial generation in me or maybe it is my own genetic makeup, but either way, in my mind, I was a slightly above average “they” but I still wanted to be the exception.
So what do you do to become an exception? Aside from having a lot of instagram followers and YouTube “subs” (wait a second while I go vomit), you have to implement change both physically and mentally. Social media is a great tool for communication, but it’s got nothing on good old fashion human interaction. Like actually making a real life impression. Social media can take away your real authentic humanity and replace it with a suave, trend-like robot version of yourself. I don’t care to touch much on social media. Back to how you become an exception.
First, you start telling yourself you can be one. I’m being serious about this. We humans do not give ourselves much credit. We might say we do, but internally we are scared as hell and think less of ourselves than what our ACTUAL capacity is. I’m saying “we” because I still have a problem with this today. I am constantly questioning my ability as a human. I’ve heard so many people say “your lucky you are able to do this, I’d never be able to do it. Or “you are so brave, I’d be too scared to do that but I wish I could.” And lastly, which is the worst in my mind “I can’t wait to live vicariously through you.”
There are a few things wrong with those statements IMHO. First of all, I am not where I am today because of pure luck and secondly, fear is ok, and actually vital for progression and thirdly, admire someone, but do not live vicariously through them. Your own life has purpose and meaning, do not diminish that by relieving yourself from your life problems by following someone else. Instead, take away what your idol is doing, both positive and negative, and either apply it, change it or don’t implement the action at all. After all, that is what they themselves are doing. Everyone looks up to someone they think is better. Everyone.
So here I am. Sitting in the pilot house of my boat, blogging about life theories but Penn needs me to come wipe his bum….until next time.