solo female van life： my evening routine (kind of)

Hi friends! I just had a great lunch at my favorite place, El Pollo Loco. They have wi-fi, they have a place to charge my Jackery, nobody's ever in there, and a $5 gets me yummy delicious real food. Now I'm feeling good. The only thing is I am super, super tired. It's like midday, well it's like afternoon-ish I guess, but I want to go to sleep. So I think I'm gonna actually just go home now. But I was thinking when I got home tonight that I should do an evening routine because I see all these cute van life girls like doing these beautiful, you know, evening routines. They look really calm and relaxing and I want to do that too. So I think tonight I'm gonna do an evening routine. Stay tuned. Actually, you know, I think a big part of my evening routine is window shopping for ---- I don't need at a store that has a bunch of random ---- in it. You all know the stores. That's what I'm about to do. I shouldn't be allowed to go window shopping because I just end up for real shopping pointless. Anyway, would you like to see my hobby lobby haul? My phone mount, you guys know it falls all the time. I just, it's not, it's not working. So this is gonna be a one-handed haul. First, we have this. I thought that this was really cute. Next, this is really the only other thing that I bought. I just bought like, um, more stamps and ink and stuff. Why? Because I love writing handwritten letters. Except I don't have anybody to write to, so I think what I'm gonna do again is if you're on Patreon, just private message me your address or an address where I can send you a letter and I will send you a handwritten letter because I love you. Um, and also I don't know who else to write letters to. If you love receiving letters, send me our address. It's truly time to go home now. I waited and now traffic is starting and, um, not excited to drive in that. I'm so tired lately. Like, it just makes me want to hibernate. Like, when it gets cold, I just want to sleep. I don't know why because it's sunny but the mere fact the temperature drops just, my body's like, nope, not doing it. There's so many people out here that I don't even know where to go. Like, is there a meeting? Twin Van! I know I say this every single time I come out here but it's because every time I come out here, it's true again, there are so many people out here. Like, I'm not sure how many more people can come but every time I'm shocked with how many more people fit in this tiny, I mean it's not tiny, that's the crazy thing. It's like a big desert but it is packed to the brim and more and more people are coming. Like, I'm watching people driving by constantly. It's so hard to find a secluded spot now. Like, I guess if you wanted to, you could just like park between 50 vans. That's what a lot of people are doing but it makes me uncomfy to do that craziness. Anyway, so the sun is setting. That means it's evening and that means that I can start my evening routine. The only thing is I realized I don't have an evening routine. Yeah, I have no routines period. I'm very nomadic. My soul is nomadic. My schedule is nomadic. My brain is nomadic. What I'm gonna have to do is just film my evening. You know, you're still gonna get a routine of sorts. It's just not, this isn't a routine. This isn't a routine. You're not gonna get a routine. You're just gonna get an evening with Alyssa Vanilla. Oh no, I hate that. You guys, why does everybody tell me my lipstick looks like ----? The first thing I like to do for my evenings is pick out a nice healthy snack. Something nutritious that's gonna keep me full throughout the night so I don't have midnight cravings. Next, I like to call a loved one. It really lifts my spirits. Mommy? Yes? Mom, I have to ask you something. Okay. Would you still love me if I had no head? Next, it's karaoke time. I like to spend a good portion of the evening journaling and sometimes even writing a little poetry. Drawing has been something that's really been relaxing me lately, so I think now I'm gonna go ahead and bring out my sketch pad and just sketch a little bit. Okay, do you guys want to see? It's not even that good. I'm a little rusty. I haven't drawn in a really long time. It's just something I sketched up really quickly, but I mean, I don't know. I think it looks kind of okay. Okay, I'll just show you. Now, this is the part where I'd usually like to read a book and really settle in for the evening, except I don't think I have any books in here right now, so instead, I'm just going to lay in bed, stare at the ceiling, and contemplate my existence. Marshmallows are so good. Wait, I think my books actually are in here. I think I took them out of my storage unit. I think they're under the bed. Okay, come with me and we'll see. Wait, I don't want to get copyright. Copy. Copy. Copyright. Okay, one second. They're in here. Today's read. I really, really love this book. I love literature. I love really prolific authors. You know, it's like a workout for my brain. Desire itself is movement, not in itself desirable. Love is itself unmoving, only the cause and end of movement, timeless and undesiring, except in the aspect of time, caught in the form of limitation between unbeing and being. Wow. I actually have no idea what the **** any of that means. I bought this book to sound deep. Did it work? I think pretty soon it's going to be time to sedate myself because I can feel my brain is just going and going. I drank coke today. Usually I don't have caffeine except medicinally since I get migraines. It feels like I could run a marathon. Okay, not a marathon, but I could like run half a mile. I think it's melatonin time and then that way by the time the sun goes down, I'll be sleepy. Okay, let's get into bed. Okay, speaking to you guys candidly for a second before I go to bed, before I force myself to go to sleep, TBH, to be honest, I don't feel like a van lifer. I never, not that I never wanted to be a van life person, but I was doing fine in my car. I was thriving in my car. I think that's how a lot of people find this channel because they were looking for people living in their car and now I have a van and that's awesome. It's a lot more room, but I definitely don't feel like I fit into the typical van lifer persona. I don't know what you would call it. Not that I want to. I feel like whenever you look up van life videos, especially women, there's a certain kind of video and like, I don't know, tone of the videos. Everything seems, I don't want to say serious, but it seems a little bit serious to me. I'm not serious, just not as playful. It's, I'll tell you my experience because I watch van life women, like them traveling and beautiful scenic montages and a lot of introspection. I don't know how to describe it. I've just never really felt like that person. I think in some of my videos, I was going for that because those videos are beautiful and they're beautifully filmed. They're beautifully produced, but that's not my thing. I'm glad that I took my break when I did and realized this is not what I need to aspire to do or to be because it's just not who I am. I just don't really take myself that seriously. It's more fun to have fun. I don't know if this is going to make any sense to you guys, but what I also realize watching a lot of van lifers, and this is no shade, again, I watch these people. I like them, but it does seem like a lot of it is the same old ---- now. I watch a few van lifers that their content is almost like exactly the same and it's well done. It is, but I can only watch so many people do the same thing over and over and over again. I don't know if you guys have noticed that. It's still beautiful. I think sometimes when we get caught up in the location or the beauty of stuff, which I was doing 100%, we lose some actual personality, just one-on-one hanging out time. Maybe this is just all in my head. Maybe I'm crazy. I don't know. I think I felt pressured to, now that I'm in this solo female woman van life space, to kind of live up to that, but I decided on my break I'm not going to live up to that. That's not really who I am. If I can't carve out a little space for myself in the van life community, that's okay. My van is not even built out. A lot of people ask me, why isn't your van built out? Because, believe it or not, you don't have to have a van built out to live in it. I lived in a car for two years and I got along just fine. Now I have a van and it's a lot more space. All I had in my car was a bed and then storage for my clothes. That's still what I have in my van. I honestly don't really plan to build it out that much. If I did build it out, I would maybe put a sink and a kitchen space right here. In order to do that, first of all, you need the space to do it. I don't really have that. Then you also need tools. I have no tools whatsoever. I don't have any experience, which yeah, maybe I could YouTube it, but it's also kind of expensive if you mess up. Wood is so expensive. Lumber is astronomical right now. I don't really want to experiment right now. Plus, I'm getting along just fine. I have my bed, I have my fridge, I have everything that I need. I just don't really feel like right now it's necessary to build it out. I'm fine. I don't know. I'm fine with how I live, but that's another thing that makes me feel kind of just not really fitting into that niche. I felt good living in a car because first of all, there's not that many people doing it. Van life is very, very saturated right now. Car life, not really, but this is the phase of my life that I'm supposed to be in. I am, I guess, supposed to be a van lifer. God sent me Stevie Ray Vans, so that's how I'm living and that's fine. It does feel like sometimes I don't really fit into this niche, but that's okay because my channel is not called Alyssa Vanilla's Van Life. It's just called Alyssa Vanilla. It's just me. I enjoy living in a vehicle. I enjoy living in my car. Now I enjoy living in my van. Honestly, I don't want you to see me as a van lifer. I don't want you to see me as this crazy chick you're following on YouTube. 20-something year old who is traveling around figuring out life. Did this seem like a parody? It wasn't a parody. This is genuinely just like a little look into what I do in my van. There are a lot of people out here today, which I've said like 50 billion times. I am aware of that, trust me, but I think because of that I'm gonna put my window covers up early and just hang out with myself because I feel like I'm on display. My van is just like my car. It's windows all around, which I love because it gives me these beautiful views, but I'm also like I'm doing a show right now. Thanks for hanging out with me in my van again. I can't wait to see you guys next week and then I can't wait to see you the week after that and after that and after that and every week for the rest of my life. Wow, but imagine, imagine me like 60 years old still like, hey guys, I'm still in the van. No, I have to pee. I actually have to pee. Life saver. I love you. Just in case nobody told you today, I love you. I want you to prosper and I will see you on the road. Goodbye.