Back

Letting Go of the Bus: The True Meaning of Home | Day 275 of my 2023 Journal

Cecilie Conrad·Oct 3, 2023· 2 minutes

Home is not about walls and stuff

I remember the first time we left the bus at Mon La Bassa. We had been parked there only a few months, overwhelmed by how right it was for us. And yet, we needed to travel and leave for the Canary Islands for some months.

It was before my mother died. Before covid. The children were still children.

How little did we know about the travel life, how newbies we were. Yet adventurous, courageous, and crazy. We had spent so much time and energy building the bus, and it had become a symbolic token of the freedom we were creating, so much so that leaving it even for an afternoon, in the beginning, seemed a risk.

Leaving for months was letting go. Leaning into freedom, even the symbol of freedom, could not stop us.

It was a long time ago.

Since then, we have left and come back many times, and the circle has worked as a mirror, reflecting the inner and outer journey.

This time, we waited a full 24 hours before we did it. I was not ready for the overwhelming reaction I thought I would have. Or for the work.

It turned out perfect.

We ARE leaving the bus; we knew it, and it was only more right when we returned. Immediately, we began to clear it of personal stuff, letting go of what was not needed and packing personal items to ship back to storage in Denmark.

It was melting hot, and there were a thousand mosquitos, so we put in a few hours and left for the beach, confident it was the right thing and grateful for the already much lighter feeling.

It was lovely to meet our friends at the sanctuary and have good hugs and warm conversations.

We will always have a home in Catalunia. But it is clear, we don’t need the bus for that. We don’t need stuff to have a home.

Home is - truly - where the heart is.

With love

Cecilie-Underskrift-300x133

Cecilie Conrad

Thank you for reading
I would love to hear from you. Listen to your thoughts and reflections - or praise :) It is often emotional to share our lives like this, and we get very happy when we get your feedback. So feel free to share a comment below 😋 


More images on Facebook

The magic of Amsterdam gave us a day to enjoy and remember. We set out originally for Paris, France, but decided to go slowly, living our lives on t…Read more
The Moments, when travelling: Like having a croissant and coffee in the sun. So, this is a short blog post - part of the migration of our traveli…Read more
That's the big problem with the mindset behind consequences-based parenting at all levels. It's not actually about consequences, it's about power. It…Read more
How do you grasp every day? How do you structure your homeschool? I have been asked this question many times. Read more
We get many questions about homeschooling; here, I have collected the 6 most common questions and answered them. Hoping it will help you in your proc…Read more
Homeschooling is the most radical choice in the flock of different leaders in our family. What does homeschooling entail, and what on earth is it abo…Read more
Seven good reasons to co-sleep with your children and stay with them and tuck them in until they are completely asleep. Read more
For many women, their children are like a business card. They need to look neat, always. But do you respect your children less than other people's op…Read more
There are many who have asked me to write something about how I survived – and how our family got through it. And I also really want to share it. Read more