Cait Flanders - Adventures in Opting Out

Also by Cait Flanders

The Year of Less: How I Stopped Shopping, Gave Away My Belongings, and Discovered Life Is Worth More Than Anything You Can Buy in a Store

First published in Great Britain 2020 by Trigger

Trigger is a trading style of Shaw Callaghan Ltd & Shaw Callaghan 23 USA, INC.

The Foundation Centre

Navigation House, 48 Millgate, Newark

Nottinghamshire NG24 4TS UK

www.triggerpublishing.com

This edition published by arrangement of Little, Brown and company, a division of Hachette Book Group, New York, New York, USA. All rights reserved

Text Copyright Cait Flanders

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission in writing from the publisher

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available upon request from the British Library

eISBN: 9781789562781

Cait Flanders has asserted her right under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work

Cover design by Emily Courdelle

Illustrations by Amanda Sandlin

Converted to eBook format by Geethik Technologies

To the staff at The Little Man Coffee Company in Cardiff, Wales, who take care of everyone who walks through the door, no matter where they are on their journey.

Am I really going to do this? This was the question I had been asking myself for months. The idea seemed impossible when I first came up with it in the spring of 2018, while walking along the historic walls that surround York, England, with my friend Kate. By the time I returned home to Canada that summer, I knew I wanted to try. From there, I attempted to answer some of the other questions and concerns I had. Like, What would my family and friends think? How would this affect my finances? Shouldnt I be doing better things with my money? Would this hurt my chances of finding a partner and being able to maintain a relationship? And what if it doesnt work? I thought I had worked through each one and come up with all the answers I needed to move forward. But when I gave notice at the condo I had been renting for the previous two years, I wasnt certain it was the right decision. And a month later, when I moved the last of my belongings into the back of my sisters truck and watched her drive away, I still wondered if I was making a mistake.

It was November 25, 2018, and a relatively warm winter morning in Squamish, British Columbia, Canada. I had woken up early to watch the last sunrise I would ever witness from my balcony. With coffee in hand, I stepped outside, looked past the tops of the trees, and focused my eyes on Mount Garibaldi in the distancespecifically, at its prominently pointy snow-covered tip, better known as Atwell Peak. As a kid, this is exactly how I (and probably most of us) drew mountains: with two slopesone up, one downconnected by a pointed peak in the middle. A triangle with no base. If it was a winter scene that I was creating, I would add a little squiggly line near the top to represent snow. Of course, as I got older and traveled and explored more, I learned that most mountains look much softer. They have curves and rounded tops, and that was true of many of the other Coast Mountains. But not this one. From a distance, Garibaldi looks like the mountain of kids dreams. Not surprisingly, then, Atwell is one of the most recognized peaks in the region, and Id had the privilege of being able to look at it every day that it wasnt hidden by cloud coverage. As quickly as the sun began to rise, those clouds rolled back inwhich typically signaled that rain or snow was on the wayand the mountaintop I loved was painted over with a brushstroke of gray.

Despite the color of the sky, the temperature stayed warm and precipitation held off all morning, which is all anyone can ask for when one decides to move in the winteror really any time of year in the Pacific Northwest. Even without the good weather, though, this move was always going to be physically easier than all the ones Id completed before it, because I was packing up the smallest number of belongings Id ever owned. In the months before, I had sold things like my bookshelf and lamps, and given away some items to friends who needed them more than I did. After decluttering and getting rid of 75 percent of my belongings a few years earlier, I had almost no attachment to physical objects. A bed, a dresser, and the desk Id made with my dad the year before were the only pieces of furniture I was keeping, along with a couch I was gifting to him. Those four things, along with six small boxes, my outdoor gear, a wall-length mirror, and a custom painting by my friend Amanda Sandlin, were all my sister and I had to pack up. Months of wondering, worrying, and planning, and the whole move took us only an hour.

What made this one more difficult was the fact that I wasnt moving into a new home. Instead, I was putting my belongings in storage in my dads basement and for an indeterminate amount of time. After five years of being fairly transient, sometimes home for as few as four days per month, I had made the decision to attempt a fully nomadic lifestyle. One where I wouldnt have a permanent home, but would instead slowly travel full-time and try to create the feeling of home wherever I went.

To start, I booked a one-way ticket to London, England. On the surface, I knew this shouldve been exciting, but I was hesitant to let myself feel that way. Traveling long term sounds fun in theory, but I didnt make this decision quickly or with blind optimism. I had moved enough times in my life to know how long it could take to feel at home in a new space or to find community in a new city. And although I hadnt actually been to many countries, I had traveled enough to know how disruptive and unsettling it could be. So, that question I had been grappling withAm I really going to do this? I didnt have an answeror at least I didnt know how long I could do it. The only thing I knew was that it was going to be hard at times, because doing the opposite of what everyone around you is doing always is. That is a situation I had some experience with.

For most of my life, I had followed in other peoples footsteps, the same way so many of us either do what is expected of us or follow the invisible but well-worn paths that lead to what is culturally normal. Despite dreaming of moving to Toronto and launching a career in publishing, after I graduated from college, I followed my parents lead and advice and started working for the government in my hometown, Victoria, BC. For the next five years, I stayed in a cycle of working Monday to Friday and drinking and doing drugs with friends on weekends. At some point, I was sold on the idea that renting an apartment by myself and filling it with all-new matching furniture and decor was important, and I used credit to pay for it all. I also needed a car, and got a loan to pay for that too.

To an outsider, it might have looked as though I had everything one could imagine a single woman in her twenties wanting. I had ticked all the boxes, climbed the grown-up ladder, and reached what I thought success was, all by the young age of twenty-five. This was the path so many of the people in my life were on, or wanted to be on, and they all seemed happy with their choices. I, however, felt trappedweighed down, both physically and emotionallyby a job I didnt want, in a place I didnt want to be, and with habits that left me both hollow and broke. The aha moment or turning point for each of these things was different, ranging from finding myself maxed out financially (the worst point) to recognizing and accepting that I didnt want alcohol to be part of my life anymore (the most honest and humbling moment). With each one, I got to a place where I knew it was time to change direction and take a new path in life. And then, one by one, I decided to opt out.