It can be overwhelming

[Hilde's Log]

Ten months, two weeks to blast off, more or less, depending on … everything.

We are working away on the physical tasks before us, the financial, retirement, and familial decisions we need to make, trying to take it steady and not get overwhelmed. Sometimes we do pretty well, other times not so well. There is just so much to do and decide.

I wonder why on earth we didn't do a lot of this stuff before, and the answer is probably because we couldn't see the exit, just the tunnel. We couldn't recondition the boat while we were living on her. Once we moved off, we found ourselves in the “go home and melt” mode. Working all day, running necessary errands after work, going home and making/eating dinner, all that seemed to preclude doing anything on the boat during the week. The same set of circumstances, without the goad of a timeline, allowed us to ignore the other life decisions that were yammering in the background. Then on weekends, other more interesting or pressing things stood in the way. It was easy to say “next weekend” because there was an unlimited number of them and we needed a break. Now we see the exit, and the number of weekends is suddenly very limited. It's easy to get overwhelmed.

I have mixed emotions about this period of time, this “suiting up for the next thing”. I don't really know what this next thing, this who-knows-how-long-and-where cruising thing, this living-into-the-last-part -of-our-lives thing, is going to look like.

Part of me is so excited, my hair's on fire, to paraphrase a friend who has a poetic gift for overstatement. To shake free of the schedule and the boredom and the routine...woo-hoo! I remember the spectacular scenery and sights. Is there anything more glorious than phosphorescence in a summer sea? Than the sun coming up in a molten-gold sheen over the water? Than the absolute silence of a still, star-studded night in an empty anchorage?

Part of me remembers quite well how exhausting it can be. How frightening some experiences are. How frustrating it can be to do the simplest chores, like buying groceries or doing laundry. How isolating it can be.

Part of me is worried. It's been ten years since we were out. I'm ten years older. I get tired more easily. I live with a chronic disease that requires a specific diet. Will I be up to the physical challenge? Will David? I remember the times when he had to do foredeck work in the middle of the ocean at 2 a.m. You can't always avoid those times.

If we go out and for whatever reason it doesn't work out, or when we simply decide we're done, then what??

Mix those mixed-up emotions with the long list of things that need to be accomplished, decided, and let go of before May 2017, and you can get Overwhelm.

When that day comes, ten months and two weeks and some days from now, it will be the same sense of leaping off into the unknown that we experienced in 2006, tempered to an extent by our experiences since then. It will be change, on a huge scale. And change, big change, can feel a lot like dying. Fortunately, I believe fervently in rebirth.