Recently, I’ve been feeling incredibly overwhelmed–for some reason, even more stressed than I was during the college application debacle. So, in the art of anxiety, I’ve been putting off all my meaningful work until the last minute (if even doing it then) and wasting away my day mindlessly on my phone. While I wouldn’t really recommend this habit to anyone, I’m not an advice blog, I doubt my words of caution would really stop you at this point anyway, and I don’t feel like being a hypocrite today, so I’ll let it be.
A few days back, I was scrolling through my YouTube recommended and saw a video pop up that intrigued me: How YouTuber Jennelle Eliana Spends Her Money Living in a 2.5k Van. I understood this video had no relevance to my life and would likely be a total waste of my time, but I didn’t have anything better to do (read: I didn’t have anything better that I was going to do), so I clicked play. As the title suggests, Jennelle lives in her van (yes, a literal car) full-time. And she does it by choice. She remodeled the van so it likely costs $10k-15k in total and it’s absolutely gorgeous, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s still a van. I absolutely could not wrap my mind around what happens in someone’s life to make them choose this lifestyle over, you know, anything else, so I dove deep and binged watched every video her channel.
Jennelle has lived in her van for a little over 2 years, regularly travels all around California for fun, has a pet snake named Alfredo, and is honestly just a little hippie girl, living her best life. Most of her videos center around her van and what it’s like to live in one, but my favorites are the ones in which she chronicles her daily life and what it’s like to live freely on her own time; they range from casual chats about her past life while she cleans her space to joyous, tearful confessions about how far she’s come and how happy she is now. So far she’s amassed 2 million subscribers in the four months that she’s had her channel–1 million of those came in the very first month–and it’s clear that I’m not the only one enamored by her lifestyle. Her unique brand of chaotic tranquility has a special way of putting everything into perspective and making it feel like everything is going to be alright.
Fairly obviously, I don’t know her personally, but even I can tell how unequivocally happy this girl is. She wasn’t happy with her life, so she put aside the pressure of the world’s expectations, silenced the cacophony of voices telling her “no,” abandoned everything in her life that does not bring her joy, and set out to live her every day in the most meaningful ways possible to her. While I’m not sure I’d ever be able to live in a van, I just can’t help but admire that too. Everything she does is purely for herself–not in a selfish way but with an importance which gives new meaning to self-love beyond mere indulgence.
Jennelle, for as little that I really know of her life, is an incredibly pure human being who deserves all the love and adoration which has come her way so far. She’s happy in such a way that I rarely see people nowadays and brings a certain positivity/outlook to everything that is truly to be commended. In life, you have the autonomy to do literally anything you choose at any given moment in time, you just have to try. Want to change up your style? Go for it! Want to shave your head? Rock that look, Britney! Want to live in a freaking van? Do it–you never know what opportunities it might bring.
It’s so easy to believe that the path we are going down is the best or the only one possible, but that will remain true so long as you let it. In a world with so many possibilities, it would be such a shame if you wasted them away without trying to put yourself first some of the time. Let Jennelle be a model for all that you can become if you listen to your heart’s desires occasionally instead of always relying on your head’s logic. As high school students, there’s only so much we can do of our own volition before being stalled by the restraints of age, but you should never let that stop you from chasing your happy.
