Anniversary

 

It’s been exactly a year since we drove our little overloaded Subaru to the closing on our house. After signing the place over to its new owners and gleefully depositing our check we immediately skipped town. So, what difference does a year make?

• We now have a boat that we refer to as our home. Though we often feel, look, and smell a little homeless.
• We’ve never been through anything worse than the weather we encountered on our maiden voyage across the Gulf of Maine (knock on wood). Looking back on it we’re glad it happened that way because every trip thereafter has been put in perspective.
•  I am no longer irrationally afraid of the boat. If the wind is blowing hard, we’re heeled way over and the sails are reefed, I don’t panic when it’s my turn to take the helm and then obsessively watch the wind indicator waiting for it to reach an arbitrary level at which I feel crying would be justifiable. I don’t know when I stopped feeling so nervous exactly, but was quite pleasantly surprised when I realized something had changed.
• Jon and I finally have a system down that allows us to work together to get the boat from point A to point B. Though we still bicker when things get stressful, we’re a lot less stressed about handling the boat overall.
• We actually did what we said we would do when we left last year. We are in the Caribbean! We still have doubts about whether it’s actually smart for us to be here, but considering how many times we thought about giving up, we’re pretty impressed with ourselves right about now.