Instagram story viewer> @kara_marlene> Tagged

Kara Marlene | The KaraVan Journey

@kara_marlene

38.2K

followers

365

following

Brain Tumor ➡️ Vanlife With my Cat for Freedom
New to TRUE-CRIME 🕵️⚖️
👇🏼Join for Updates • Stories • GoFundMe

POSTS STORIES REELS TAGGED

My priorities didn’t slowly change.

They changed overnight.

Being told I had a brain tumor made me look at my life differently — especially the way I spend the one thing I can never earn back:

my time.

I don’t want to spend it proving myself.
I don’t want to spend it exhausted.
I don’t want to spend it giving my peace away to people or things that don’t deserve it.

I want books that make me dream.
Morning matcha.
Walks with Moonlight.
Music.
Writing.
Sunsets.
Kindness.
Wonder.
Peace.

Maybe that sounds like a smaller life to some people.

To me, it feels enormous.

Because I’m finally measuring my life by how much of it I’m actually living.

And I keep wondering why it took something this frightening to make that so clear.

So maybe you don’t need to wait for your own wake-up call.

Ask yourself now:

What actually deserves the precious time you have left?

Live today. ❤️

I love you, and I’m glad you’re here.

#BrainTumorJourney #LiveToday #ChooseJoy #VanLife #EverRisingHope

58

4

I used to think I needed more.

More money.

More success.

More certainty.

More approval.

Then I was told I had a brain tumor, and suddenly none of that felt as important as I thought it was.

Now I want something completely different.

I want mornings that feel peaceful.

Books I can disappear into.

Walks with Moonlight.

Music that moves me.

Words worth writing.

Sunsets I actually stop to watch.

People who are kind.

A life that feels like mine.

I don’t want to spend whatever time I have left trying to impress people I don’t even want to be like.

I don’t want to sacrifice my peace just to look successful from the outside.

I want to be here.

Actually here.

Living it.

Feeling it.

Noticing it.

Loving it.

Maybe the goal was never to build the biggest life possible.

Maybe it was to build one you don’t need to escape from.

That’s what I’m doing now.

One ordinary, beautiful day at a time.

Live today. ❤️

I love you, and I’m glad you’re here.

#BrainTumorJourney #LiveToday #ChoosePeace #VanLife #EverRisingHope

18

2

Replying to @NissiJoy One of the most beautiful parts of sharing this journey has been hearing from people whose stories didn’t end the way they were told they would.

Thank you, Nissi, for sharing your husband’s story.

Every diagnosis is different.
Every treatment is different.
Every outcome is different.

But hope deserves a seat at the table too.

I’m continuing to research, learn, and carefully consider every path in front of me, and hearing stories like this reminds me that none of us truly knows what tomorrow holds.

If you’ve lived through something doctors said wouldn’t happen, I’d love to hear your story.

❤️ I love you, and I’m glad you’re here.

#BrainTumorJourney #Hope #HealingJourney #Documentary #VanLife

25

0

Healing Didn’t Fail. I Just Found Another Layer.

I think I misunderstood something about healing for a long time.

I knew I had unhealthy coping mechanisms that developed from things I experienced growing up.

So I worked on them.

I healed some of them.

I changed.

And then I started noticing other unhealthy behaviors in myself.

Except these felt different.

They weren’t necessarily coping mechanisms I’d created in response to what happened to me.

They looked like coping mechanisms the people who hurt me used.

And that realization can be terrifying.

Because after you’ve worked so hard to heal, you can suddenly think:

“Did I become them anyway?”

“Am I going to repeat what they did?”

“Was all this healing for nothing?”

But I’ve started understanding it differently.

Children learn by watching.

We absorb how the adults around us respond to stress, fear, anger, conflict, vulnerability and pain. Some of those patterns can become automatic long before we’re old enough to consciously decide whether we want them.

Recognizing one of those learned patterns in yourself doesn’t mean you share someone’s character.

And it doesn’t erase the healing you’ve already done.

It means you’ve uncovered another layer you can work on.

That’s the part that gave me hope.

I could heal the unhealthy coping mechanisms I developed.

And now, when I recognize unhealthy patterns I learned from other people, I can work on those too.

I don’t have to carry them because they were modeled for me.

I don’t have to accept them as my personality.

And I don’t have to assume I’m destined to continue somebody else’s cycle.

I can notice them.

Understand where they came from.

And choose something different.

Maybe discovering another thing to heal isn’t evidence that you’re trapped in an endless cycle.

Maybe it’s evidence that you’re finally able to see the next thing you’re ready to change.

I love you, and I’m glad you’re here. ❤️

#HealingJourney #BreakingCycles #ChildhoodTrauma #SelfAwareness #PersonalGrowth

37

2

Replying to @Jennifer Sometimes your life doesn’t change because the world changes.

It changes because one day you decide your peace matters more than pleasing everyone else.

That decision looks different for every person.

But it always starts with one choice.

Protect your peace.

❤️ I love you, and I’m glad you’re here.

#HealingJourney #ProtectYourPeace #Documentary #PersonalGrowth #BrainTumorJourney

45

6

I pulled over on the side of the road for a baby dragonfly and I’d do it again. 🐉🩵

Found him on my seatbelt.

Pulled over.

Set him free.

This is just who I am now. 😂🩵

#BabyDragonfly #DragonFlyTok #VanLife #KaraVanJourney #WildlifeRescue TinyCreatures PulledOver NatureLovers VanDweller RealVanLife DragonFly NatureTok JustWhoIAmNow UnplannedContent EverRisingHope

92

5

Replying to @retiredhappyone1 Loneliness is one of the quietest struggles people carry.

Since sharing my story, I’ve realized how many of us are rebuilding our lives—not just physically, but socially and emotionally too.

If you’ve ever felt like your circle became smaller after life changed…

You’re not alone.

Maybe this community can become a place where none of us has to carry that feeling by ourselves.

❤️ I love you, and I’m glad you’re here.

#BrainTumorJourney #Loneliness #HealingJourney #vanlife #braintumor

52

3

I can’t watch one more post telling me there aren’t good men in this world without telling you what I’ve been seeing behind the scenes.

They told me I have a brain tumor.

I sold almost everything I owned, moved into a van with my cat, and decided we were going to make whatever time we have together count.

Eventually, I did something that was incredibly difficult for me:

I asked for help.

I started a GoFundMe.

And people showed up.

Women and men. $5, $20, $50, $100, $200, $300 and more.

Every single one of those gifts matters to me. Every single one.

But today I found myself crying because I needed to acknowledge something I’ve been witnessing from men specifically.

Men have quietly reached into money they worked incredibly hard to earn and handed some of it to me.

No expectation.

No transaction.

No asking for my attention.

No wanting anything back.

Just:

“I see what you’re going through. Let me help.”

And I know something about how hard some of you work.

My father owned a construction company. I grew up seeing men come home exhausted after long days of physical work, outside in brutal heat, earning every dollar with their bodies and their time.

So when someone takes $100 or $200 or $300 of that hard-earned money and says, essentially, “Here. I want this to help you,” I understand what they’re actually giving me.

They’re giving me hours of their life.

And that overwhelms me.

I’ve had experiences in my life that could have made me close my heart to men completely.

But that isn’t the whole story I’m witnessing now.

I’m seeing good men.

Kind men.

Generous men.

Men who quietly show up and expect absolutely nothing in return.

And I think those stories deserve to be told, too.

So to every single person who has supported me: thank you.

And today, specifically, to the men who have quietly stepped forward and helped carry some of this weight:

I see you.

Thank you for reminding me of the good that’s out there.

I love you.

And I am so incredibly glad you’re here. ❤️

#GoodMen #Kindness #braintumor #Hope #vanlife

84

14

Some of You Asked if Moonlight Goes After the Goslings — Here’s Your Answer 🐾🪿🤍

A lot of you have been asking whether Moonlight bothers the goslings and ducklings at the lake.

I’m going to let the video answer that. But I’ll give you the highlights.

He came face to face with a baby gosling today. Right there in the open. Close enough to touch.

He walked over. He sniffed it. And then he walked away. Just like that. On to the next thing. Completely unbothered and completely gentle.

Then he went to check on the squirrel situation — got closer than usual but didn’t chase. Just assessed. Filed his report internally and moved on.

Then he made his way to the water’s edge. Checked the water level. Made sure everything was in order.

And then he marked it. His official seal of approval. Moonlight the KaraVan Kitty has been here. He has done his rounds. Everyone and everything under his protection is safe and accounted for.

I don’t know how I ended up with a park ranger for a cat but I am not complaining even a little bit. 😄🐾🪿🌊🤍

#moonlightthekaravankitty #ParkProtector #KaraVanJourney #EverRisingHope

18

1

I thought I had everything figured out…

Until I realized I couldn’t run my EcoFlow and my air fryer the way I wanted to.

So…

Back to @homedepot I went. 😂

All I needed was one simple splitter so I could dedicate one outlet to keeping my EcoFlow charging while giving my air conditioner its own power source.

It wasn’t a huge project.

But these little problem-solving moments are becoming part of van life.

Every upgrade teaches me something.

Every mistake teaches me something.

And every time something finally works…

It feels like a huge win.

Today, I plugged everything in…

Flipped the switch…

And it worked exactly the way I’d hoped.

Sometimes progress isn’t glamorous.

Sometimes it’s just one more trip to Home Depot.

One more lesson learned.

One more step toward building a life that feels like home.

❤️

I love you, and I’m glad you’re here.

#VanLife #HomeDepot #EcoFlow #TinyHome #RVLife

54

11

Hope Isn’t What I Thought It Was

I had a realization today that changed the way I think about hope.

Someone shared the story of their husband’s resilience in the face of an overwhelming illness. As I was responding, something clicked.

Hope isn’t separate from resilience.

Resilience is the evidence that hope exists.

Every person who gets back up after heartbreak.

Every family that keeps showing up through unimaginable circumstances.

Every caregiver.

Every survivor.

Every person who wakes up and chooses to keep going when life has given them every reason to quit.

They aren’t just holding on to hope.

They are living proof of it.

Maybe that’s why I keep believing in people.

Because every act of courage reminds us of what we’re capable of together.

When we feel like hope is nowhere to be found, maybe we don’t have to look any farther than the people who refuse to give up.

Or maybe…

We only have to look in the mirror.

That’s why, at the end of every video, I tell you:

I love you, and I’m glad you’re here.

Those words mean even more to me now.

I don’t know where this journey is going to take me.

I don’t know what tomorrow looks like.

But I know this:

As long as we’re here, we can keep choosing one another.

And maybe that’s what hope has been all along.

❤️

#Hope #Resilience #HumanSpirit #HealingJourney #ChooseHope

32

9

Sometimes the biggest milestones don’t look very exciting…

Today, mine looked like a little adapter from @campingworld . 😂

I recently started my new job at an RV park, and one of the first things I needed was a way to connect my van to 30-amp shore power.

Up until now, I’ve been running everything through my EcoFlow DELTA 3.

Now, I can keep my EcoFlow plugged in continuously while it powers my air conditioner and everything else I need.

It’s a small change…

But it makes this little van feel even more like home.

Every project.

Every upgrade.

Every little improvement reminds me that I’m not just living in a van…

I’m intentionally building a life.

One piece at a time.

I’m so excited to see where this next chapter takes Moonlight and me.

❤️

I love you, and I’m glad you’re here.

#VanLife #RVLife #CampingWorld #EcoFlow #ShorePower

41

7