Leaving Society for a Simpler Life: My Dream of Homesteading in the Mountains

No, there are many, many like you. Just ask my father, @RKE

@PinBall 100%. @David, do it while you are young and can build it to where you can sustain a family on it. I’m past that point in my life… but I can still dream!!

@RKE I'm 45, so not really young, but determined. right now I have to take care of my dad (76yo Vietnam vet that falls all the time and I am the only one who can pick him up), but I have made it clear to my family when dad passes I'm gone. if they want to go too fine but I'm going with or without them. ideally I want to go to either Colorado or Montana or Idaho. Alaska is a very open option if I am going alone, but my wife would prefer more south.

@David I’m sorry to hear that. Going with or without them makes it seem like times are tougher than just taking care of your dad. Hopefully you can find peace and a way that allows you to stay together and finish what you started.

@RKE well it's not that times are tough so much as it is what I want to do, and I have given up all my dreams and accomplishments for other people. it is my turn. I'm tired of the drama of society and now I want peace. I also need to prove it to myself that I can do it for real, not just a few days. so it will probably be a few years before my dad passes. I am making preparations though because it will be easier that way.

@David I guess it all comes down to how/where you find peace and what you want to be remembered by. It’s tough to find peace in what we (or others) do. Circumstances always change. God forbid, something happen and you’re not able to move off grid. What then? One of the main marks of manhood is living for the best of others. Sounds like you’ve had some bad interactions with others. I too want to live free, but leaving those I love and have committed to doesn’t sound like freedom, but rather a new type of prison.

well like I said I'd prefer they go too, but most of my relatives are cruel to me because I am different. I have lived most of my life in solitude anyway. when I needed them most, mental break down when I started having mobility problems that make me fall, everyone abandoned me. my wife had an affair with her first boyfriend, and then left me for him while I was in the hospital. the dude was over 600 pounds of just plain flab. he died and less than five days she was begging me to get back together. I was living in basically a shed with a toilet for three years while we were separated. when I say they abandoned me I mean no one even tried to contact me in anyway for three years. they would hurry away if they saw me in the store. I did not do anything bad to anyone. I just locked myself in a room and passively waited to die, and everyone abandoned me in a hospital. I was only in the hospital 7 days. when I got out my wife had moved her boyfriend in and changed all the locks and refused to let me get my stuff. my parents/sister/cousins/aunt told me don't come around. simply because I didn't want to live in a wheelchair they all shunned me. so there is that. the general public are so cruel to everyone it makes me sick.

I forgive my family for abandoning me. I try to forget but it doesn't really work that way. you always remember trauma. I love my wife and kids, and would prefer they go with me. how ever I need peace from the cruelty of others. I need to not feel everyone staring at me and talking about the fact of all that happened six years ago. I need to not feel judged. I need to show myself I can live the way my ancestors did. I realize at best I can only do it for maybe 20 years before my health forces me out, but I need to do that time for my own mind. my wife understands and wants to go with me. plans to do so. my youngest two kids want to go. I just simply mean it is something I "have" to do. when I stand before God to be judged I want him to be able to say

"good job my son". it is something I feel it so deeply that if it means being abandoned again, I can handle that. I don't want to leave, but if that is thier choice we'll I have to accept it. my wife and kids share my dream. it is something I have talked about since I was 14. just now that my parents need for me is coming to an end it is my last chance to make it happen. I've got maybe twenty years before I permanently lose use of my legs. I have to live now, before I can't. it really isn't a selfish thing. it is a man should not die with regret for what he didn't accomplish, and this is my last chance to not be my dad's greatest disappointment. he never said that, I just feel I am. I need to have done something of significance in my life. I need to live the dream I got from him. he never took his chance. I raised other people's kids instead until he couldn't walk anymore. I've done, am doing, the something he did. I'm a father to not just my kids but all their friends because their parents aren't. I feel though that homesteading in the mountains is what needs to happen so all those people have something to be proud of me for. I don't want to be the guy who couldn't do it because I was too weak to try. my father did plenty. he was a soldier and a legend for his strength of heart and arm. I need to show others I am my father's son, and have that strength too. I need to show me I have that. I need to show God I will do what he put on my heart to do. I need to show God it is okay to be satisfied with me, I'm not weak. I don't really expect anyone else to understand. if you aren't facing a wheel chair if you don't die first (I'm being tested for liver cancer), then people can't understand. I need to do this, but I'm not doing just for myself I'm doing it for "everyone". I need a simple life to be satisfied with my life. I have zero regrets in life other than they wouldn't let me in the military over a knee surgery in second grade. other than that I did what was right,

some things may not have been exactly legal (but I can't stand there while someone beats a child), bit I never did time cause it was justified that I beat the crap out of someone. of course there was the teenage mischief. everything made me strong. now as my time is running out I have to show it. it doesn't matter who sees it. I know when Dad crosses over he will see, and God will see, and that is all I need to see it. everyone else will just know. for the last three years I have watched the strongest man this world has ever know, a living god in my eyes, wither away. his only regret he says is he never got to live his dream of homesteading. I can't disappoint him by not doing it. as I said don't expect others to understand. they haven't walked in my shoes, they haven't been where I have/am. I worked myself to the point osteoarthritis is going to take my legs. people don't understand what it is like to have worked three lifetimes (had three very successful businesses at the same time working on a couple hours of sleep a week) in a 23 year span to give your family the best life possible. not just my family, eight other kids also. I supported even my cousins and sister and parents during that time. now all my hard work is going to put me in a wheelchair. till in my shoes it is near impossible to understand why I need to do this. why I need to do it at all cost. I have lived my whole life for others. I have done what others needed ignoring my own needs for 45 years. I guess you could say even this is actually for my dad and others, but this difference is it is something I have wanted since childhood. most kids want to be cops, doctors, lawyers, firefighters, etc. I wanted to be a mountainman. so it is my need I guess you could say fueled by the needs of someone else. I don't know how to explain it.