Lady who lives in a van, exmormon, primitive skills and outdoor survival enthusiast, cautionary tale. Also, *not my real name.
- Where are you from?
I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area but have since spent the bulk of my adult life outside the US. Now, in Covid times, I live everywhere, in a van. You can usually find me somewhere between Cabo San Lucas, Seattle, Kalispell and Yuma.
I’m equipped to be out in the wild for 2 weeks or so at a time, longer if I have a water source (rain or a river). I duck into civilization when I have to, and pretty much hate it every time. …
Sometimes responsibility for fixing the parent-child relationship shifts to the child.
He’s a good guy, but a sh!tty father.
My dad is a pleasant guy. Nice to be around, accepting, kind, easy to talk to.
He was an absolute sh*t father, though.
He and his glamorous girlfriend spent much of my childhood jetting around the world, spending his inheritance and conveniently forgetting to pay child support. He rarely called, he didn’t write.
He wasn’t there for me when I needed him.
When I reached adulthood and didn’t need him anymore, we stopped speaking for 2 or 3 years.
The phone works both ways, dude.
I was 22 and putting myself through…
Why this surprise is both good and bad.
I’m just a dabbler.
I’ve never thought of myself as a serious Medium writer. I just write when something bubbles up in my mind and overflows the bounds of my subconscious, distracting me from my daily tasks.
The act of writing turns the heat down. My brainpan’s lid stops rattling and I can go about my business.
It’s always been this way, but Medium gives me the means to actually get an audience for these thoughts. I don’t know why it makes a difference that someone else might read my writing, but it does. …
Why the slow burn of accidental attraction is so much better than online dating.
The tragic flaw in online dating is the presupposition of romance.
I online dated for a while, and here’s what I hated about it:
I’d be sitting across from some man, and our first date would go well, the second would be fine, and by the third, I could all but hear him thinking, “Ok, things are going good, when do we fuck?”
I mean, fair enough. We were both online dating because we were open to romantic possibilities, right? But I soon learned that my desire doesn’t arise in such scenarios. …
How to build an extraordinary life without money, talent, or hard work.
Medium is replete with advice on how to live your best life, and I’m entering this hallowed space as an obvious imposter. I’m not rich, nor am I talented. I’ve never been able to keep up with a stellar morning routine, and I’ve never worked very hard at any particular pursuit. My “career” is basically just a collection of activities I’ve done to keep myself in funny stories, food, and gas money.
I know. I don’t belong here. But before I see myself out, I have some advice on living an interesting life, because if there’s anything I’ve done well…
After about 20 years of getting any guy I wanted, suddenly I’ve realized I suck at socializing.
What a little hottie he is.
A couple of days ago, I met a dude at my new job. Cute enough guy, single, amazing body. I wasn’t really interested, because who wants the drama of getting involved with someone from work? I just figured we would be coworker friends.
But then, he started talking. And I realized he’s smart, too.
Interest flared up in my chest and bubbled over, filling my whole body. Coworker drama suddenly seemed not to be that big of a deal. …
Deprived of rich female characters when I was young, the upsurge in authentic content about women still isn’t enough.
The 80s left me starving for narratives I didn’t know existed.
There was the pretty desirable one, or the shrill harpy. Both were defined by men’s desire, and neither of them resonated with me. If I squinted, I could imagine myself the damsel in distress, shrieking uselessly as her badass man fought for her honor — but it wasn’t a satisfying vision for me as a little girl absorbing 80s TV and movies. All my favorites— Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, the Goonies, Indiana Jones, The Princess Bride — featured adventurous, resourceful men or boys, and pretty, mostly useless women.
Neither did I resonate with the safe mom types, or the nurturing…
My nonbinary sperm donor and I want to co-parent, and I think we’ll both be better parents without romantic entanglement.
I wanted a baby. My boyfriend wanted me.
In the gory days after my second miscarriage, my then-boyfriend said something that stopped my heart:
“I think I just wanted to try to have a baby because I didn’t want to lose you.”
My phantom left tube, which had been ruptured by the growing baby, then removed by my surgeon, throbbed. What if I’d had a healthy pregnancy? What kind of father would he have been if he helped me create a whole new life only as a ploy to keep me around?
I wonder how common that kind of thing is. I mean, he wasn’t a bad person…
I’m never going to get medium-rich, am I?
Integrity. Poverty. They live together in perfect harmony.
“Hey, thanks for this. We are going to pass on this one but we really appreciate you sending it our way. Nice story, but light on actionable takeaways for the reader! Till next time!”
That’s the message I recently got from the editor of a major Medium publication. And holy shit was he right. There was not an actionable takeaway within a mile of that story.
And I’ll tell you why:
Because I wrote it, and I can only write what I know, and based on my experiences, life itself comes with no pithy little takeaways to please the reader…
Ever wonder what would happen if you failed to get the 9–5, or the house, husband, and kids, and got lost in the world instead?
A week before graduation, my fellow graduates and our professors gathered in a room. I went to a small liberal arts college, and my major was small, too. The people in the room probably numbered under 100. Maybe closer to 50.
The professors sat up front, and the graduates sat in the audience. We discussed the upcoming graduation ceremony, each professor gave a short speech, and many of us cried.
At the end of the meeting, they passed a mic around and each of us grads explained our future plans.
When the mic came to me, I explained that first…
Ija Mei
Watch this space for stories about nomadic living and single motherhood by choice.
