OUR JOURNEY TO BECOMING DIGITAL NOMADS PART 7: Closing on Our House and Beyond

It’s Closing Day!

Closing day had arrived, we had finally sold, given or donated nearly all of our earthly possessions at this point. We even sold Joel’s car which meant we had just the one car! We were a one car family for the first time ever. A weird and rare thing in modern day America, but what we are doing, selling it all to become nomads so we could travel the world, is a bit weird too I suppose. 

Our remaining things were now out of the house, successfully packed into our Ubox and on its own journey across the country. We had our car stuffed with suitcases, a safe with all of our important documents and only items we would need for the next two weeks. You know underwear, warm weather jackets and our photography gear so we could document the journey.

We booked an Airbnb not far from our house so we could go back and forth quickly before the keys were handed over to the new owner. It was like a little mini vacation, or rather a working vacation, as we spent the last few days making salvation army runs, cleaning and tidying up the house while still working from our AirBnB.

Joel and I were feeling pretty good, we could finally take a breather and finalize our trip across the United States to Seattle Washington. The plan was to stay with Joel’s parents for a few months and do some housesitting while they went on an extended trip. With the closing papers signed and lots of hugs and thank you’s we left with a bottle of champagne gifted to us from our awesome realtors at Southern Athena and celebrated the rest of the day!

Saying Goodbye to Nashville and Our Friends

We were both ready for a change but it was still bittersweet to leave. I met Joel in Nashville and countless other friends. My two best friends moved down from Illinois a couple of months after I did in 2008. Nashville had been my home for the last 12 years and Joel had lived there for 26 years!

For us to sell everything and become nomadic was going to be a huge change for us, personally and professionally. Saying goodbye was hard, but on the bright side we knew we would be back! At the time we had planned to be back in Nashville for April and May of 2020. Little did we know the whole world would turn upside down due to a global pandemic. But more on that story later.

Moving on

After saying goodbye and partaking in what seemed like a mini food tour of nashville, it was time for us to head out. Did I mention eating at our favorite restaurants? If you didn’t already know Nashville is full of amazing food and we were definitely spoiled living there. I could go on, maybe another time. Besides our friends, we miss eating in Nashville the most. It has been a struggle ever since. 

Before we could begin our trip out west for what was supposed to be just a few months, we headed down to Brentwood, for our last couple of days in Tennessee. Two of Joel’s film friends were getting married at a cute venue out of town and we didn’t want to miss out celebrating their special day with them. So we pushed our leaving date back and took advantage of the extra time to relax before our epic road trip. 

After watching our things get hauled off in a UBox, turning over the keys to the place we knew as home for the last 12 years, and the whirlwind of the last few months we were exhausted. It took us what seemed like months to reconcile everything that we had gone through to begin this new journey. 

In a word: sacrifice. 

As I write this we are a little over a year out from selling our house to begin this next phase in our journey both together and exploring our planet and its people. Despite the huge setback that the coronavirus pandemic has caused us both in our professional careers and our nomadic travels, we wouldn’t change it. No do over. 

Would we do some things differently? Sure. Would we do it again today? Absolutely! Know matter when you begin your journey you will always have obstacles and setbacks. You can’t avoid it, that is a part of life. It’s how you respond to those obstacles and the move forward that defines your journey. We are ever hopeful and excited to see where this takes us, both as a couple and individually. 

Thank you for reading about our journey to becoming nomads and we sincerely hope that you can take something from our experience. Whether it be some inspiration, useful tips, or are just curious, we hope that you can apply some of our story to your life and your own journey.

Be sure to check back as we will soon begin the fun stuff! In the coming months we will share our travels since selling it all and continue to document our journey both here on the website, on youtube and our social media channels. 

Do us a favor: subscribe or follow along on your favorite platform and let us know where you are at in your journey.

Joel & Michelle
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