Ironically, the topic of this weeks blogpost is Time (sorry it’s two weeks late!). I’ve been thinking a lot recently about how time is experienced differently in the van, in comparison to what might be considered ‘normal life’.
At the start of the month, I flew from Ataturk Airport, Istanbul to London Heathrow and spent ten days back in England. Whilst in England, I spent time with my best friends and family (some of whom I haven’t seen since November!) and volunteered for an amazing charity ‘The Reasons Why Foundation’ who use mentor training to rehabilitate and reintegrate prisoners back into society in order to minimise reoffending - seriously check out what they do, they’re a great organisation.
I can never sleep on short haul flights, so when I landed in England, I had that exhausted, confused, dehydrated look about me. There is still something I find so bizarre about the notion of time zones - especially when you're travelling through them!
The flight was only 4 hours but I gained those extra hours into my day since I left Turkey at 5:30pm local time and landed in London 6:45pm local time. Then ensued the peculiar conflict between the part of my brain that was still working to Turkish time (and wanted to go to sleep immediately) and the other part of my brain that was trying to revert back to UK time and was absolutely not going to let me sleep at 7pm. It took the whole weekend for those two brains to gain some sort of semblance of order.
After spending 5 months getting woken naturally when the sun comes up, setting an alarm felt so strange; I had forgotten how time-structured ‘normality’ was. In the van, mornings are slow. There is nothing to rush out of bed for - nature isn’t going anywhere. Plus, everything takes so much longer due to the lack of space, so a morning routine that usually takes 10minutes takes at least 30. We chose a short wheel base van, meaning we only have 1 square metre of standing space. Because of this, we get up one after the other and first one up (Alice) makes breakfast! But morning routines don’t consist of much; In the van, I don’t wear makeup, I have a minimal selection of clothes and a small (singular) breakfast choice. I put my hair in a messy bun, I throw on the clothes I had on yesterday and that’s basically it!
During that week in England, mornings were a rush. A rush to get ready to get to the station, a rush for the train, a rush to get to work. Suddenly, I had so much more to do in the morning - there was a shower at my disposal, I had outfits to plan and make up to apply. And I’m still not sure which I prefer. I appreciate the effortlessness of the morning routine in a house. Hot water comes out of the tap, there is a fridge and you can turn on the heating when you get cold. In the van, I find myself not doing things I would usually do in a house, because a) I physically can’t do them or b) because they are definitely not worth the extra effort it takes in a van.
Finishing work at 5:30pm and not getting home late was strange, because in the van, it starts to get dark around that time. Once it goes dark, you’re very limited on what you can do, particularly if you’re wild camping in an area that isn’t well lit. I usually have dinner and am settled for the night, reading or watching a show by about 7pm. Getting home around 7pm meant that suddenly I didn’t have much of an evening after I’d eaten, prepared for the next day and got ready for bed.
In London, my days flew by. I don’t know if that’s because I suddenly had all these things to do in my day.. but in the van, the days are slow. And after that week at work, I was exhausted - I couldn’t wait for the weekend. Vanlife doesn’t leave room to ‘life for the weekend’ because life is the weekend. For some people, Vanlife is ‘normal’ life. But for me, in just over 2 months time my trip will have ended and my slow paced, non-time structured lifestyle will return to one similar to the way I spent my week working for the charity in London. And I’m totally okay with that! In fact I’m excited about all the endless possibilities! I think what I will be able to take away from the experience is that sometimes, it’s important to slow down the pace and try and incorporate at least one day a week where you can work outside of the constraints of ‘time’ and relax, do things you love, eat breakfast at 2pm and not have to rush for that train.
What’re your experiences with time? How do you like to spend it? Do you wish you could speed up or slow down your pace?