To hell with it. Let's sail away!

We're getting ready to sail away. There is no other way for me to put it. We know when we are leaving (fall, 2017) and we know where we are going (The Florida Keys), and after that... unknown.

I've been dreaming about this for YEARS. So it's weird that I'm not more excited. Don't get me wrong, I'm totally excited. I'm also more terrified than I thought I would be. The fear is a total buzz kill.


First off, we didn't arrive at the decision to sail away under the happiest circumstances. The original plan was to sail off in the fall of 2018, and be back in the Bahamas for our 10 year wedding anniversary. That sounds like a great plan, except I'm losing my god damn mind in Muskegon.

I just can't fathom another year and a half of my life in it's current form. The thought of it makes me boil from the inside out. It makes me slump into depression.


Somewhere along the way, I read, heard, or came to the conclusion that happiness is inside you. And if you are not happy where you are, then you will not be happy where you are going. Happiness is a state of mind. You can't find it with GPS coordinates. Or can you?


My life here is not all that bad. By many standards, it's above average. But that doesn't mean it's right for me. I never wanted a routine life. Commuting to work each day. Having a house with nice things. No thanks. Life should not be about going to work. I get that we all need money and everything, but the meaning of life is not to go to work. At least not for me. I don't want to be laying on my deathbed looking back on my life and thinking "well, I lived in Muskegon and I went to work and made some money and bought some things. That's what I did." To hell with that.


This life I'm living, it's not my real life. My real life is on pause. At least that is what I've been telling myself for the 8 years its been since we stopped living on a sailboat. But how long does it take for this land-based life to become my "real one?"

I worry that the further we get from living on a boat, with every year that passes, it will become all that much harder to go back. I worry that I'll end up stuck in this life forever. I feel stuck already. Trapped. I'm worried my life is going to become an accident. That I will end up living out a suburban life I never wanted.

And so, losing my mind, struggling with depression, I convinced LeeAnn that we should sail away a year early.