Me, the Sea and My Life Now

At the end of my last post, I was still living aboard Perdida with Mike.  We had lost our very beloved fourteen year old dog Happy and mourned his loss as though we had lost a child.  Things were beginning to unravel below the surface but our stubborn plan to sail to Hawaii was still on course. 

The story doesn't have a very happy ending so far as answered dreams are concerned.  We never sailed off to Hawaii.   I never got to sit in a tropical lagoon in Perdida's cockpit watching the sun set.  I was never able to use any of the skills or knowledge I learned in the countless seminars and classes I'd attended.  I never felt the freedom of being out in the ocean, no land in site, standing at the helm with sea air blowing through my hair as I had imagined it with such excitement since as far back I can remember.  I had foolishly assumed this journey was to lead me to my life's purpose.  The pull to the sea was so strong, how could it not be destined?  How could something I'd never felt such joyful anticipation for completely abandon me.  I still don't really understand what happened.  Perdida has been gone now for four years and I still deeply mourn her loss.  Mike left for Hawaii around the same time we sold Perdida.  He sailed her from Catalina with a couple friends to her new owner on the mainland.  Watching her leave the harbor and disappear over the horizon hurt so badly I couldn't stand.  My heart was breaking into a million pieces.  Even while I write this, the pain returns, my eyes are welling up with tears and the computer screen is becoming harder to see.  I always look out into the harbor to see her beautiful, distinctive teal colored hull, wondering if her new owners would take her here for a cruise but I have never seen her.  I suppose I'll never see her or Mike again.

Sometimes I miss Mike deeply.  I love my husband dearly but I know that I will never again share something so life altering, as what Mike and I shared, with anyone else.  The hundreds of photographs we took along our journey are sitting on my hard drive and will probably remain unviewed for the rest of my life.  As I took those pictures I remember thinking "Maybe we can make a documentary about our journey".  Maybe someday my daughter will look at the photos after I'm gone and wonder about them. 

How could I be as close with anyone again?  Mike and I were together for eight years, most of which was spent researching sailboats together, dinners out or at bars spent excitedly talking about nothing but our "plan", going to countless classes and seminars together, buying our dream boat together, going through rough times while learning about our new boat together, packing up our lives and driving across the country to start our new life and so so much more....together.  I learned at Christmas that Mike had gotten married.  It knocked me off my feet, crushing me for about three days.  The same thought kept running through my mind and even quietly sobbed through my tears "Mike....what happened...what happened to us?".   All I could think about was the day we first met.  The excitement that had begun that day and had completely sustained me (while also torturing me) for eight years was completely dead.  No one else on this planet could possibly understand what this felt like but Mike.

 Mike's wedding as well as the onset of Fibromyalgia have completely closed the door on what feels like three quarters (or more) of my self.  I tell my friends and family that I feel like a shell of who I once was but I don't think they really understand.  How could they.  I never could have imagined what this felt like.

My living room window looks out upon the Pacific ocean.  I watch the sea intently every day; calm and blue, then white with wind-driven froth, choppy in a breeze, constantly changing before my eyes.  I can look upon it as a spectator but I cannot participate.  The first affliction that prevented my vision from becoming reality, Panic Disorder, is still there, only lying dormant, waiting until I'm on the sea again.  My second affliction, Fibromyalgia, seems to make the first or any other deterrent seem irrelevant.

Things in Life Go on and on

My mom is visiting from NJ for our daughter's first birthday which is tomorrow.  Two friends of mine had planned to come yesterday to celebrate but one friend was sick and the other (who gets very seasick and is practically phobic of boats) was afraid of the predicted rough boat ride across the channel.  I was really hurt at first, thinking she (the former) was making excuses when my she called to say she wouldn't be coming, in fact we got into a big argument about it.  I don't have many friends on the island anymore and my family is on the other side of the country.  My husbands family couldn't attend due to work schedules.  So it would just be me, my mom and my husband.  We ordered a six inch cake, mostly as a photo prop more than anything else.

Yesterday afternoon, after my husband returned from his fishing charter, he very unemotionally explained that his mother had been taken to the hospital with shortness of breath, and that he was going to take the next boat to the mainland.  We've known for some time that she was ill but doctors hadn't quite pinned it down yet as a lung malignancy, CHF or COPD.  We were hoping some tests she recently had would give some answers.  My husband's father died when he was eighteen.  I'm glad his two half brothers are there with him.  He called not too long ago with sad news.  Apparently his mom has several serious chronic conditions that are inoperable, including emphysema, COPD and a leak in one of her heart valves.  I guess the doctor told them that she didn't have much time and that she was too weak to survive any type of heart surgery.  I wish I could be there with him.  He's taking it really hard and I just want to comfort him.

My husband's mother along with his half brother and his wife were just here visiting us two weeks ago.  I didn't really notice anything different about his mom but my husband and his brother thought she seemed short of breath and noticed that she had lost a lot of weight (which she could not afford to loose).  I'm so glad now that she was here to see her grand-daughter and spend time with her.  I had no idea at the time, that it may be the last time my daughter would ever see her grandma and probably the last time my mother-in-law would come to Catalina Island, a place she has loved dearly since her teen years.  When they left and we hugged, I didn't know it may have been the last time.

My husband is coming home tomorrow morning but probably leaving again the next day.  He fears his mom may only live a few days more.  I feel so selfish wanting my husband to be here for our daughter's first birthday but it's important to me for some reason especially since he wasn't there at her birth.  I know he should be with his mom though.  There will be lots more birthday's with our daughter (I certainly hope) but this may be the last chance he has to spend with his mom.  I know he's coming home for me.  Maybe I should call and tell him not to come home, that he should stay with his mom.  I'm so torn, I don't know what to do.  If he doesn't come, it'll only be me, my mom and my daughter, pretty much a non-event for her very first birthday and pathetic pictures for the family album, but really not the most important thing.  I'm so confused and sad.  I wish I could hug my husband right now.  The events of this day have seemed to magnify the the inevitabilities of life and death.  The beginning of one life and the ending of another.