You may have everything together to make your abode a home, but if you have kids, you know it isn’t permanent.

You can have a clean home, but then the kids come in for a break, and you start back over. Many tiny-living and bus families understand this truth.

Life was never about perfection; only about being present and enriching the time you have with the ones you love. The more that you accept and let go of your preconceptions and keep your heart open to learning more truths, the easier living becomes.

I’m not referring to survival. I’m not taking about existing. I’m talking about truly living. No constraints, no politics, no one to decide your happiness for you. Living with an abundance of what makes you happy and pushes out the anxiety, fear, and stresses that society feels is appropriate and necessary to life.

It’s okay to let the cars rest on the floor.

It’s okay that there’s a pb&j mess on the counter.

Those things can be cleaned up later. What matters is that someone is learning, someone is happy, and someone is loved.

It is never a child’s responsibility to keep the parents happy.

These menial tasks are repetitive (be honest, damn annoying) and take up a few more minutes than what you may have planned for, but in the whole scheme, battles must be chosen wisely.

Positive memories must be made priority.

These are ideals we have learned through the bus life. Ideals that weren’t necessarily handed down, but brought in by reflecting on our own childhoods.