how van life has changed me pt. 1: embracing impermanence

“Everything is more beautiful because we’re doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are now, and we will never be here again.” -Homer, The Iliad

I’ve found myself in places in Australia and with people I’ve met that I just don’t want to say goodbye to. Moments where I’ve wanted to press pause and hold onto tightly and never let go. I’ve spent a lot of time grieving the impermanence of beautiful things, quietly hoping that there’s a version of reality in which something can stay forever.

But life doesn’t let you live that way… and van life especially doesn’t let you live that way. When your home has wheels, you are constantly practicing goodbye. To places. To people. To routines. To versions of yourself. I have learned that meaning is not the same thing as permanence; a connection can be real without lasting forever; and a place can change you even if you only pass through it.

Maybe I used to think that if something ended, it meant I had lost it. Now I’m starting to understand that its ending is what made it sacred.

The coastline is beautiful because tomorrow I’ll drive away. The conversation is electric because it exists only in that hour. The version of me that stood there, sun-tired and salt-skinned, will never exist in quite the same way again.

Nothing about this life is designed to be held onto, and that has taught me to live it more fully. Non-attachment doesn’t mean indifference or not caring. It doesn’t mean loving less; rather, loving without trying to cage the moment. It means allowing something to be exactly what it is: fleeting, complete, imperfect, and enough.

I am learning to let things end without grieving the “what-ifs.” To loosen my grip on things I want to hold onto to. To let beauty come and go. To trust that I don’t need to preserve every good thing in order for it to have mattered.

We will never be here again. And that is precisely why it is so beautiful.