What\u2019s up?! My name\u2019s Caroline. I\u2019m 26 years old, and I just quit my job to travel the country in my van. Now, I know what you\u2019re thinking. But this isn\u2019t going to be a van life blog. This isn\u2019t a travel blog. I\u2019m not going to post pictures of fancy dinners in exotic locations, or filtered photos of my ass while I sit in the back door of the van. No one wants to see that, I\u2019m not that hot. But what I am going to be writing about- the reason why I\u2019m starting this blog- is that for the first time in my life, I have no idea what I\u2019m doing- and I\u2019m absolutely loving it. And I figure that there must be at lest one other person out there who is loving their screwed-up experiences just as much as I am. And ok, there will be a little travel thrown in there.. I mean hey, I do live in a vehicle. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I won\u2019t dwell on it, but to give you a quick background I was born and raised in Maine. I was- and still am- a huge nerd. A self-proclaimed loner. My social skills are comparable to those of a 3-year-old. So naturally I chose a career that was equally as isolating. I went to Maine Maritime Academy immediately after high school, graduated in 4 years and have been working as a merchant marine on an oil tanker ever since. I\u2019ve always been responsible- studied my ass off, never did drugs, never defied my parents, never broke the rules- a regular old square. And so naturally following the typical path in life made sense- I graduated college, got a great job, set up a 401K, and was cruising along the road of success and responsibility. Until a few moths ago. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now don\u2019t get me wrong, I am incredibly fortunate to have had the opportunity to follow this path in life. And I certainly wasn\u2019t handed anything on a silver platter. I\u2019ve had a job since I was 15 years old, bought my own (very shitty) vehicle, took out student loans for all of my college tuition not covered by financial aid, and have paid for it all myself. I\u2019ve earned everything that I\u2019ve gotten. But I\u2019ve always felt that something in my life was missing. And a few months ago, I finally realized what that was- I haven\u2019t had any damn fun! <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I knew I had two options in front of me. Option one- take the risk. Leave my stable job, put everything I own in storage, cut my shoe collection in half, buy a camper, spend time outdoors doing the things I truly love, and just go for it. Or option two- stay comfortable, and probably end up with regrets. Well, no time like the present. So here I am, going for it. I\u2019m 26, homeless, unemployed, single- and I\u2019ve never felt happier or more free. Actually I\u2019d say the right word is \u201chopeful.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Alright, enough with the serious shit. I started this blog as a place to laugh at myself- and hopefully for other people to laugh at me too. Because life is way too dark and serious- sometimes we all need to remember to make fun of ourselves. Nobody\u2019s perfect- and I am more than willing to sacrifice my own dignity to prove that point. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I should warn you, there\u2019s going to be some real talk. I\u2019m a sailor so there\u2019ll definitely be profanity. But mainly there will be a shit-ton of my unfiltered thoughts and experiences- on life, on sleeping in a vehicle, on traveling to random places I just decided to visit the previous day, on staying in creepy parking lots and eating ramen noodles, on bad dates with random guys I meet online, on hiking and camping (because what else do loners do for fun), and mostly on finding myself- in the most fucked up (and most exciting) way. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
A little inspiration to round out this terribly boring intro:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In life, it\u2019s the mistakes we make that teach us the most about who we are and who we want to become. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yes, I just made that up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So with that, welcome to my new life. Time to start screwing up. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
What\u2019s up?! My name\u2019s Caroline. I\u2019m 26 years old, and I just quit my job to travel the country in my van. Now, I know what you\u2019re thinking. But this isn\u2019t going to be a van life blog. This isn\u2019t a travel blog. I\u2019m not going to post pictures of fancy dinners in exotic locations, or filtered photos of my ass while I sit in the back door of the van. No one wants to see that, I\u2019m not that hot. But what I am going to be writing about- the reason why I\u2019m starting this blog- is that for the first time in my life, I have no idea what I\u2019m doing- and I\u2019m absolutely loving it. And I figure that there must be at lest one other person out there who is loving their screwed-up experiences just as much as I am. And ok, there will be a little travel thrown in there.. I mean hey, I do live in a vehicle. I won\u2019t dwell on it, but to give you a quick background I was born and raised in Maine. I was- and still am- a huge nerd. A self-proclaimed loner. My social skills are comparable to those of a 3-year-old. So naturally I chose a career that was equally as isolating. I went to Maine Maritime Academy immediately after high school, graduated in 4 years and have been working as a merchant marine on an oil tanker ever since. I\u2019ve always been responsible- studied my ass off, never did drugs, never defied my parents, never broke the rules- a regular old square. And so naturally following the typical path in life made sense- I graduated college, got a great job, set up a 401K, and was cruising along the road of success and responsibility. Until a few moths ago. Now don\u2019t get me wrong, I am incredibly fortunate to have had the opportunity to follow this path in life. And I certainly wasn\u2019t handed anything on a silver platter. I\u2019ve had a job since I was 15 years old, bought my own (very shitty) vehicle, took out student loans for all of my college tuition not covered by financial aid, and have paid for it all myself. I\u2019ve earned everything that I\u2019ve gotten. But I\u2019ve always felt that something in my life was missing. And a few months ago, I finally realized what that was- I haven\u2019t had any damn fun! I knew I had two options in front of me. Option one- take the risk. Leave my stable job, put everything I own in storage, cut my shoe collection in half, buy a camper, spend time outdoors doing the things I truly love, and just go for it. Or option two- stay comfortable, and probably end up with regrets. Well, no time like the present. So here I am, going for it. I\u2019m 26, homeless, unemployed, single- and I\u2019ve never felt happier or more free. Actually I\u2019d say the right word is \u201chopeful.\u201d Alright, enough with the serious shit. I started this blog as a place to laugh at myself- and hopefully for other people to laugh at me too. Because life is way too dark and serious- sometimes we all need to remember to make fun of ourselves. Nobody\u2019s perfect- and I am more than willing to sacrifice my own dignity to prove that point. I should warn you, there\u2019s going to be some real talk. I\u2019m a sailor so there\u2019ll definitely be profanity. But mainly there will be a shit-ton of my unfiltered thoughts and experiences- on life, on sleeping in a vehicle, on traveling to random places I just decided to visit the previous day, on staying in creepy parking lots and eating ramen noodles, on bad dates with random guys I meet online, on hiking and camping (because what else do loners do for fun), and mostly on finding myself- in the most fucked up (and most exciting) way. A little inspiration to round out this terribly boring intro: In life, it\u2019s the mistakes we make that teach us the most about who we are and who we want to become. Yes, I just made that up. So with that, welcome to my new life. Time to start screwing up. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":161,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"WB4WB4WP_MODE":"","WB4WP_PAGE_SCRIPTS":"","WB4WP_PAGE_STYLES":"","WB4WP_PAGE_FONTS":"","WB4WP_PAGE_HEADER":"","WB4WP_PAGE_FOOTER":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-introduction"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/screwingupandtakingnames.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/me-in-van.jpg?fit=%2C&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/screwingupandtakingnames.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/screwingupandtakingnames.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/screwingupandtakingnames.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/screwingupandtakingnames.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/screwingupandtakingnames.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/screwingupandtakingnames.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10,"href":"https:\/\/screwingupandtakingnames.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4\/revisions\/10"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/screwingupandtakingnames.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/screwingupandtakingnames.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/screwingupandtakingnames.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/screwingupandtakingnames.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}