They say the two happiest days of a sailor’s life are the day he buys his boat and the day he sells it. I find that I don’t relate, and not only because I’m not a “he”.
We are selling Baby Blue today and it breaks my heart. I’ve had quite a lot of time to get used to the idea of letting go, but now that the day has finally arrived I feel a knot of regret in my stomach.
Despite my gripes and pining for creature comforts while onboard, I miss living on Baby Blue. I don’t often get attached to objects and typically prefer to avoid referring to anything inanimate as “she”, but it’s never been so hard for me to move on. She was my first boat and I love her.
We worked long and hard to fit our lives into the space of her tiny cabin. She taught us how to sail, kept us safe in the face of some extreme circumstances, and allowed us to experience so much beauty. Through my trials and triumphs living on that boat, I felt the constant clash between my faith that everything will be okay and my anxiety about all of the worst things that could happen. Baby Blue represents my dreams come true and my hopes dashed, my success and failure, my frailty and strength.
Again I’m faced with that familiar feeling of hanging in the balance between fear and trust. I’m afraid that we will never sail again and won’t get to show Everett the life that inspired us to become parents in the first place. At the same time I worry that I might not really want to sail again. But I have to trust that even if we never own another boat, we will still find a way to live closer to our ideals now that we know what is possible.
What I long for most is the freedom we had. It was far from easy, but having now traded that freedom for security, it seems worth every frustrating moment to get some of it back – and make it last this time. Ironically, selling Baby Blue is probably the best way for us to do that.
Traveling aboard Baby Blue proved to me that it is possible to dislodge yourself from the norms about the way you’re supposed to live, without ending up destitute and despairing. So, as we close this chapter of our lives, I am hopeful. I think there will be another boat out there for us, one that is better suited to a growing child and his seasick mama. I have faith that after swinging from one extreme to another, we can land somewhere in the middle of security and risk, comfort and challenge. It’s a big big world, and I intend to see a lot more of it – one way or another.
To Baby Blue’s new caretakers, fair winds. She’s been holding her own since 1969 and won’t let you down. I hope you will love her as much as we do.
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