What Will You Create?

What Will you Create?
By: Trice Sweet
After deciding we’d spend some time in the Denver area, and assuming that at some point we’d run out of money, we decided to both look for jobs in the beginning of January. It’s a rare, magical situation that we were able to be in for the previous three months, unemployed and roaming the country with only a few cares in the world. At some point, we’d have to get back to at least a bit of reality, and the time felt right.

As I was scrolling through websites for job postings, I voiced to Brandon that I wanted to do something for work that I’d never done before. The thought of doing exactly what I’d done prior sounded stale and boring to me, but I was ready to do it again if we just needed to pay some bills. What our journey had taught me so far was that the world and its job opportunities were much more far-reaching than I’d previously thought, so why not take advantage? My head was swimming with this novel thought that went something like, “I can do anything I want” even if I didn’t necessarily know what that was yet.

As the Universe would have it, in the middle of mindlessly tapping “Apply” on Indeed and LinkedIn, Brandon and I both got a text from a friend in the Boulder area asking if either of us had any video editing experience. I cringed a bit, wondering if my broadcast video production classes from high school would hold up. I might not have been the perfect fit for the job, but it was about a million times more exciting than anything I was seeing online. I metaphorically raised my hand for a try, and within about a week, I was working on a project I
was terribly unqualified for, wondering if my grit and hard work would make up for my lack of knowledge.

As this was happening, Brandon was forging an unexpected path of his own. If you’ve ever met him, you know he could sell ice to an eskimo. He’s charismatic and wildly intelligent, so it only made sense that a sales opportunity presented itself at the perfect time. After some trial days at the office and some serious thought about what it would look like to take a full-time job while living in a van, he accepted a job offer with Buckley Fence, selling premium horse fencing.
January was busy, we were both training at our new jobs, taking care of the pups, and on top of everything, dealing with living in a van in snowy, ten-degree weather. I’m not sure how many tanks of propane we went through, but it was more than I could possibly count.

We didn’t do much adventuring unfortunately, due to the cold weather and new busy schedules, but Brandon did manage to go bouldering outside with new friends in Clear Creek Canyon, while we both joined “Movement,” one of the local gyms in the Denver/Boulder area. Plus, we invested in some more warm-weather gear for us and the pups.

Almost all of a sudden, both of us had jobs with the potential to be fully remote in the future and had more than enough income, especially while living rent-free in the van. It was not only comforting to have a paycheck again, but also felt like an obvious nod from some higher power that we are well taken care of, even if it isn’t always apparent. Further, it felt like we were being asked the question, “What will you create, now that you know that you can?” I may have been fully capable back in Georgia of creating exactly the life I wanted to live, compose pieces of art I wanted to compose, or land the job opportunities I wanted to land, but I had no earthly idea that I could.

It’s almost felt like this rude, but loving awakening, screaming at us, “You can do whatever you want, if you’ll just go do it.”