Why

Warning….the themes here are a little dark and melancholy and have nothing to do with sailing but it does discuss the underlying events and thought processes that brought us to this place. My financial advisor certainly thought it was a very bad, even irresponsible idea on the order of insanity because in his mind he thought I should be trying to amass a large sum of money and assets to support a significant lifestyle for long after I retire. I learned a few years after we started down this path that he died suddenly at the age of 61. He was still grinding to and from work each day but I am sure he left his family very comfortable.
The most pervasive question that I hear from my non-sailing friends and acquaintances is “What made you do something like this?” It is usually asked in a tone that implies that this seems like a bad decision and there is concern etched in the tone as well. I have even had friends whisper in my ear “Are you sure you are OK?” Like maybe I am being held against my will???? Anyone who knows me knows that I don’t do anything against my will. So why would two successful individuals in the peaks of their respective careers give it all up to go sailing with no real plan? From some of my previous posts, most of the readers get the idea that the destinations are cool and exciting but the passage making is hard and uncomfortable. Sleep schedules are disrupted, eating and meal prep is challenging and even going to the bathroom and basic hygiene is a challenge. Why would a person leave the comfort of your home, the stability of careers and the ties of family and friends to live on a boat in a minimalist lifestyle and face the forces of mother nature? We had a beautiful home. We were each outstanding in our respective careers, he a critical care paramedic and I a physical therapist. We have six daughters and they are beginning their families and navigating the perils of adulthood. Why would you sell your house and belongings and leave all that you have ever known behind and trade it for essentially the unknown?
For Dave, I think it was a natural transition, a built in code so to speak. He is Portuguese and I am sure there are sailors or gypsies or pirates somewhere in his family history. He was also the product of a military family so every 3-5 years during his formative years he was moving. This stayed with him and it seems like every 3-5 years he is ready for something new. A new job, a different degree, a different vehicle, or a new hobby. He never settles for long. And then there is his career, a critical care paramedic. These professionals see the best and the worst of humankind. It wouldn’t be bad if you mostly saw the best but they don’t, mostly they see the worst. He thrived in cardiac and trauma emergencies. As a paramedic, he was literally able to save lives in those situations but unfortunately those are not the majority of calls. The majority of calls seem like they are related to substance abuse and mental health crisis and sadly the US health care system doesn’t really manage these problems well so they would transport them to the hospital in crisis but the hospital couldn’t hold them for a variety of reasons and would discharge them back into their situation with no resources. A few days later the individual would be in crisis again and the cycle repeats itself over and over. I think the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back was getting called to an unresponsive intoxicated male. When they lifted him to the gurney, they realized that someone had placed a baby in bed with him and he had rolled over on the baby in his drunken stupor and smothered it. You just don’t recover very well from something like that. Kids calling 911 because they can’t wake up their Mom or Dad and then there is no avenue to get the kids out of the situation “because it isn’t bad enough yet.” I always knew when he had a bad call involving a child. He wouldn’t talk about it but I could always tell. In the end though it was the loss of his mother and best friend. He mother who did everything right and dedicated her life to serving the church suffered a series of strokes that over time stole her golden years and his friend Andy would never see his golden years, wouldn’t even see his children married or his grandchildren. A life taken too soon by cancer. Dave was ready to move on much earlier that I was. Living in a mobile floating home was no stretch of the imagination for him.
The gypsy lifestyle was a big stretch for me though. I few up in rural America where having roots was important and expected. You had flowers and gardens and yards. You scruffed around in the dirt and planted things with roots and eventually you established roots as well. My Mom had roots. My Dad did not, he was a dreamer who came and went in and out of our lives. He was a good man but I learned that if he said goodbye, we would see him in a few days but if he said “tally ho” then it might be weeks, months or even years before we would see him again. Over the years Mom continued to honor her vows even when Dad began using different possessions as collateral to fund his dreams. Soon people began collecting on those items. The vehicles went first, the small caterpillar we had next, our herd of sheep and finally the house. My Mom went to live with her sister and my Dad lived in a topper shell on a vacant lot in Billings, MT and I went to college. I was signed up to attend college at MSU majoring in education but at the last minute I changed my mind and applied to UND for their pre physical therapy program. I wanted a more secure career because I vowed that no one would take anything away from me ever again. I wanted roots. I joined the pre physical therapy ranks at UND. There were over a 1000 students competing for 24 slots in the program. It was grueling but I made it and even on my first attempt. What made it even better was even though I made a calculated decision to pursue PT, I found that I had a gift and my career in physical therapy was very blessed. I loved the art of physical therapy and had good outcomes and encountered amazing people on a daily basis. In the beginning, I didn’t question the situations that brought my patients to me. I just focused on what I needed to do to help them get the most out of their life. But the years went by and it became more and more difficult to ignore their situations. How does a meth head fall and break a couple ribs and get hospital stay but a prominent man with Parkinson’s Disease or a stroke only get admitted for observation which defaults him out of his Medicare B benefit? Why does a mean abusive drunk get to go home after a bout with aspiration pneumonia but a 17 year old boy with everything to live for dies in an accident? Why does a person who falls off a 2 story building suffer a couple broken ribs and a sprained ankle but someone else falls off a step stool with 2 steps and dies? How can a beautiful, vibrant mother die suddenly of brain cancer? What I had previously accepted as life was seemingly more and more unfair. The biggest blow to my belief system was coming though. It came in the form of a horrible disease and it attacked the one person that meant more to me than anyone other than my girls. The disease was Lou Gehrig’s and the person was my Mom. There was no one who deserved her golden years more than Mom. She had worked so hard and lost so much. It was time for her to enjoy a measure of her life but it wasn’t meant to be. The physician who diagnosed her told her to go home and prepare to die. She had a very aggressive for of the disease. He diagnosed her in November and died in June the following year. It wasn’t just her though. Her sister, my aunt and mentor died of a heart attack after beating cancer, some more friends and family members passed and finally my season of loss ended 11 months later when my Dad drank himself to death after the loss of my Mom. These events really made me question what I was doing with my life. I felt like I was merely existing. I was also beginning to realize that I was giving so much physically and emotionally to my job that there wasn’t anything leftover at the end of each day. My body was beginning to fail, 25 years of lifting and moving people had taken it’s toll on my hands and back. I still had 20 years to work. What was going to be left of me in 20 years? Ellen Goodman summed it up nicely: ” Normal is getting dressed in clothes you buy for work, driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for in order to get to the job that you need so that you can pay for the clothes, the care and the house that you leave empty all day in order to live in it.” How can this be normal and yet it was and is for millions of people. I was no different. I had swallowed the Koolaid called the American Dream but I did have my roots. Did it have to be this way? Dave and I had been talking for years about our 10-year plan. Was I ready to take that step, make that leap to move away from everything that I had ever known, everything I had been told was the right way to be responsible, the right way to do things? The answer slowly became a resounding yes. I had sat beside and held the hands of far too many people who were dying. They never spoke of their money or success, they only spoke of fears and regrets. When Mom died, I finally had the courage to do something radically different. From that point forward, almost every decision we made and every action we took was with our 10-year plan of sailing away in mind. It was no longer a dream, it became a goal. We felt like if we pursued it sooner than later and it didn’t work out we were still young enough to return to the rat race. If we waited too long then we might not be able to physically manage the task of sailing and then there is life that has such a way of happening. At any rate, right or wrong, we have now committed to and embarked on this journey. I don’t know for how long, how far or where it will take us. I no longer know what my future holds. We now live each day in the moment. Some of those days are so amazing they don’t seem real and there are no words to describe the beauty around us. Some of those days are hard, I miss my girls and want to talk to them, I’m tired, I need space, I want a bath but those moments soon pass. For now life is much more simple, I am more at peace and I am happy. For now, we are living our dream.