The Narrative

At the moment of writing, we’re nearing three weeks in the Van Heldens Hike. As the crow flies, we’ve covered 75 kilometers, coming from Lagos (which turned out to be the start of the hike, after travelling from Figueira da Foz on the bus).

As we reside on the second camp ground in our trip, I notice that I have to come down from a heightened state. Laura suggests to get some time for myself, but the thought of it overwhelms me. Writing a new blog is on my mind daily, and now I get the chance, I feel a resistance. My mind is searching for excuses as why it wouldn’t work right now. For the past week and a half, I’ve felt an urge to deliver a very due blog, but the self-imposed pressure is paralysing. It’s a performance-state-of-mind, but one that never gets me on the podium.

Laura’s solid advice to sit down and breath is semi-ignored. ‘Write now!’ flashes with neon letters behind my eyelids, making sure I have a reminder each time I blink. While I walk down to a suitable place to sit, I run into three generations of Dutchies. We share some thoughts and I love the mother language chat, but I’m once again aware that mine are all over the place, as I jump from subject to subject in a blur of words.

Let me take you back two weeks.

Like at home, the days were stitched together, but with less than a moment of self-time. In theory we knew that life on the road would be relentless, however we didn’t expect that we’d have to change the narrative going into the second week.

On a daily basis we went through the motions of breaking down and setting up camp, ‘bath’ and bed time, and preparing meals, which are more time consuming without the availability of a kitchen and associated conveniences. During the day we try to put the emphasis on playtime and downtime, as we know it’s resetting for the kids. It’s obvious when a stop is due, but locations don’t always line up with the kid’s needs, which fulfilment is 99.9 percent of the time required now. Let me tell you that it needed parenting 2.0 to keep the peace, and in those moments, I questioned myself as a parent.

Everything got amplified as the days got hotter, and light dehydration, hunger and fatigue were building up, whilst we acclimatised to operational standards.

All this time, Laura’s role had been unprecedented. She’s mummy with a capital M. Max and Sofia required a lot of her attention non-stop and wouldn’t leave her alone for one minute. I timed it. Not. A. Minute. As a dad you can feel dispensable, but it’s worse that certain tasks ‘can’t’ be done by me, to give mum a breather. It’s not a surprise that they both pull to her more often, because our parenting styles are quite different. I’m aware I’m much harsher and more affected by their behaviour. The days that Max wakes up in a grump and then takes it out on Sofia have an effect on me and negative energy lingers though the morning hours. He struggles to explain what causes him to wake up like this, but his behaviour shows jealousy towards Sofia; she wakes first and has therefore spent time with us before he joins the party. I don’t deal well with this at all and it causes anger and wrong responses.

Looking back from the end of week three, these mornings were plenty in the first week and some, much like at home. Last week, with the change of our own mindset, it seems we’ve turned a corner.

When things culminated on day ten, we hit a wall. Intense parenting with toddlers that were still figuring out the new modus operandi was one thing. Not taking the time to sit down together and express personal needs, discuss how to roll with things, and simply talk and connect, another. Sitting down with a book, listening to music, or watch the stars, a third.

After a day of having the phones out too much, in attempts to take flawless pictures and catch funny moments, we occupied ourselves further with social media after putting the children to bed, feeling we had to post stuff, summarise the day, and catch up on everything and everyone. We got sucked into the black hole that catches every ‘social medialist’. (What if we miss out on fame and fortune? What if we could have a following that would create opportunities for paid partnerships? Ego talk!)

This, combined with the drive for enough forward motion and we were setting ourselves up for failure. Something had to change if we wanted this to be a success.

The bottom line and part of the problem was not prioritising the purpose of this trip. We’ve always talked about connection and building relationship with ourselves and each other, things that seem completely absent in our world full of communication devises. We took ‘living in the moment’ for granted, half-half expecting that simply to be the case when taking off for an adventure like this. It couldn’t be further from the truth.

The unrest or anxiety of just ‘being’ was still strong, and the ugly urge of ‘getting somewhere’ and ‘doing something’, stuck its head up more than I wanted. (It still does now and again.) It shows its face in different, sometimes ridiculous ways. A couple of hours down-time, in the heat of the day, in which we take lunch, play and relax, and in which I genuinely allow myself to just flow, can be followed up by a rushed feeling of getting on the move again. Then, my ego can easily say silly things, like: “It’s the end of the afternoon already, we could have covered a few more kilometers today.”

I know, it sounds daft when you read it, but I think in current times most of us have the same things going on, and my mind often takes me to the fields of wonder, asking why and how we got where we are. Did we become victims in the hunt for conveniences, losing the connection to the natural world and our natural state in the process?

There has never been a time bigger on conveniences, we’ve got everything at hand in a heartbeat. Yet, we’ve never been so unsatisfied, restless and stressed.

Perhaps the problem is, that in the end, these conveniences cap our happiness. With convenience giving us the assurance of comfort and ease, it aims to eradicate problems and challenges; the very things that can give meaning to life. Solving problems is a fulfilling way to improve our well-being. With tackling challenges, you get a feel of accomplishment. We need a certain struggle to reach goals, because it gives us more self-respect. Reaching a goal with resistance boosts our self-respect and if we have more confidence, we understand better that we have to look inward to find our worth and happiness.

If we spend our time seeking ease, we tend to become more unhealthy, complacent, and isolated, because…hey…while we think we are working smarter getting our enhanced home-delivery meals, we don’t have conversations anymore.

With our search for convenience, we also show next generations to take a path without resistance. They will grow up with an inability to learn how to adapt and become more resilient.

So, here we are. Day 21, in the slowest way of travelling we are learning to slow down even more and further let go of the need to ‘do’.

Reading the first paragraphs, one could wonder why we want to leave an established life in a peaceful town and go through the effort, added challenges, uncertainties, and discomforts of life in a tent and a modest budget on top of the aforementioned.

It’s a valid question with the answer encapsulated in this article.

With getting on the road less travelled, we step away from many things that we take for granted, bringing ourselves in a better position for connection in any form.