Two things that have been consistent in our lives throughout the past five years:  1.) we live a very unique lifestyle, and 2.) it is very unusual for us to complain. 

We honestly believe we are living a dream.  A dream that involves traveling to over seventy diverse destinations in 48 of the 50 continental United States as our job.  We know very few people who wouldn’t jump at this once in a lifetime opportunity, so believe us when we say, “we don’t take it for granted and we appreciate living our unique lifestyle too much to consider complaining.”

So please don’t take this as a complaint:   On Saturday September 4^th we were robbed.

We must admit, when someone violates you by stealing your stuff it takes riding a wild roller coaster of emotions to find a perspective that will allow you to continue to say, “We don’t consider complaining.”

The ride begins with some form of shock.  Everything seems to slow down as your mind resists comprehending the obvious signs of the situation.  The small pieces of glass on the ground as Randy approached the passenger’s side of the Subaru Outback created a confusion that had already overwhelmed him by the time his eyes could be convinced they were seeing a giant hole in the back window.  The confusion came accompanied by an all body weakness, maybe even a slight nausea.

At this point the ride goes into some form of cruise control.  You’re calling the police.  You’re informing the front desk that within the last ten minutes, in their busy-check out time of day-full parking lot only fifty feet from the lobby doors, your car has just been broken into.  You’re walking vigorously from nearby parking lot to parking lot with the hopes that you might find any sign of your stuff.   You’re not able to actually think straight, so cruise control takes over in search of action.

 Eventually you walk in enough circles to think again, and sure enough you start having moments of clarity.  The clarity is a welcome burst of reality at this point, it doesn’t get you your stuff back, but it does allow you to apply logic to the situation, and it relieves the nausea too.

  It eventually became perfectly clear what had happened.  Sheri has replayed the scene in her mind many times over.  At 8:50am Sheri had a subtle flash of Intuition.  She knew something wasn’t right about the blue minivan that was parked uncomfortably close to the passenger’s side of our car.  The blue minivan was so close that Sheri had to load her purse, her overnight bag and our camera bag into their usual positions in the car from the driver’s side; everything has its usual position because for eight and half consecutive months, our life is in our car.  When we hit the road there is no looking back, we don’t go home, we are home, that Subaru is the closest thing we have to a permanent address, so life has to be organized and you can only fit so much stuff, so everything has to have its usual position.  While loading the first trip of stuff from our night in the Holiday Inn Express near the airport in Portland, Oregon Sheri caught a glimpse of a guy who was sitting alone in the middle row of the blue minivan holding a bouquet of red flowers in front of his face with the sliding door on the driver’s side of the van open, uncomfortably close to our car.  She didn’t want to go near that side of the car, but felt like multiple chirps of the Subaru door locks was enough to secure our stuff in the car for the ten minutes it would take to complete a second trip, considering it was broad daylight and the parking lot had people coming and going regularly, there was no reason to think otherwise, he was just waiting on the rest of his party to check out, that was the innocent thought.  Between 8:50am and 9:00am we were robbed.

We have been traveling this country for five years and never once have we had a problem.  Until now, we hadn’t had a single experience that would cause us to say anything but positives about the people we have been fortunate enough to come into contact with along the way.

 Cruise Control eventually surrenders to a complete lack of control when the Hotel points at a sign that says, “Not Responsible For Damage To And/Or Theft of Car Or Contents”, and the police officer says, “welcome to Portland” as he explains that this will happen multiple times in Portland today, essentially putting a quick end to the emotions that coincide with hoping to catch this guy, which is where anger gets its turn on the ride of emotions.

Our Anger is by no means directed at the police.  The Officer who first arrived on the scene and the detective who came out to take fingerprints were both really nice guys and they genuinely would love to get our stuff back for us, but they also know that this guy did a very professional job.  The Anger is a necessary part of the ride though, each time you realize another piece of your stuff is gone the more angry you get, the first earrings your dad ever gave you – gone, anniversary presents from one another – gone, your prescription glasses – gone, Sheri’s purse – gone, the more you think about all your gone stuff the more angry you get, the more you think about the fact that someone is out there going through all your stuff the more angry you get, and the more you think about the fact that he has done it before and will do it again, the more angry you get.  You get mesmerizingly angry.  It feels like the ride is going through some sort of a cloud, the anger is blinding.

 Eventually you reach a point where you want off the ride.  For us it was the moment we realized that we were still letting this guy have an impact on us, we were letting the ride develop a domino effect.  If you stand up a line of dominos and then knock the first one down they will continue to fall without ever having to touch another one. That guy in the blue minivan knocked over that first domino when he used his crowbar to shatter our car window.  If we think about it like a set of dominos we can decide to stand our ground or just keep falling over, we can search for a perspective that is positive, a perspective that will put a little space between ourselves and the negative emotions that came standard with that first domino and we can stop falling.

As you step off the ride you will without a doubt feel tired, if not exhausted from the emotional roller coaster, but once back on your feet you will also feel empowered.  Empowered to know that in the end it is all just… well…just…stuff and stuff is not worth getting on that kind of ride. 

Would we like our stuff back, sure we would, but are we going to continue to let ourselves fall down on a negative ride of emotions over it, no way.  We have each other and we have another experience we will never forget, “we don’t take it for granted and we appreciate living our unique lifestyle too much to consider complaining.”

See You Outside,

Sheri and Randy Propster

If anyone in the Portland Area has any information concerning the robbery of the Get Out More Team please contact getoutmoretour@hotmail.com.

Tags: Portland Theft

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 8th, 2010 at 1:23 am and is filed under Advice From the Experts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.