Life in a Rolling Cardboard Box
From Chicken Soup for the Soul: The Joy of Less
By Jema Anderson

Where we love is home — home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts.
~Oliver Wendell Holmes

Sunlight is now my alarm as I rise to light the gas stove for my coffee. I peer out into our living area where all four of my children sleep — girls on the couch, and boys on the floor. We told them it would only be for a year. I smile, as in January it will be five. The traveling life has woven our family together from separate pieces of cloth into a quilted piece of art.

I think back to our old life with a new house I designed and built on my great-grandfather’s farmland. Jon worked more than forty hours a week — on-call weekends and vacations as the only IT person for the bank and its eleven branches. I stayed home with the kids, found volunteer opportunities, and kept up with the demands of their public schooling. I look back now and see how as a couple we lived parallel lives — Jon had his work bubble, I had the home bubble, and on weekends Jon could visit my circus show. (Keep reading)