I’ve talked about my brother Kyle previously when discussing various sailingadventures as well as my SCUBA progress… What I haven’t talked about are his and Becca’s (his wife) plans and dreams. I’m not going to try and articulate their dreams… no one could except them. Suffice it to say that they are planning on joining us in casting off and following our cruising dream. On their own boat, of course.
Kyle was the first person other than Michele that I discussed my crazy idea with. We were extremely excited about our newly hatched plans… almost giddy. Each time we researched cruising we became more convinced. We needed an outside opinion (We’ve since met with our friends Scott and Brittany from Windtraveler for one). Before approaching Kyle, I expected to meet resistance and a multitude of reasons why following my dream was impossible. Amazingly, I found nothing but support. Well… support and mutual interest. He began to express many of the same sentiments that Michele and I have about materialism, time freedom, and life in general.
I am not going to talk about the whys, the hows, whens, etc of Kyle and Becca’s plans… their story is their own. They have become part of Michele and I’s story in some ways, however. It is a huge comfort to know that we will be sailing with people we can implicitly, and without hesitation, trust. Not only will we have double the amount of spare parts, dinghies, tools, etc but we will have partners to experience the wonders of cruising with. I am sure there will be times when we wonder “What are we doing here?” Thankfully, we will have Kyle and Becca nearby for support. One of the things I am most looking forward to is meeting new people and new cruising buddies while we are on our adventures, but I am extremely lucky to have a brother that shares the passion and dream of cruising.
As an employee of a local children’s hospital, I regularly hear testimony from families who have been changed forever by an illness or accident that has happened to their child. This Mother’s Day, one mother of a long time patient wrote a blog post for the hospital that I would like to share with you. She reminds us to celebrate every moment with our children, even those that seem “ordinary”. Enjoy and have a Happy Mother’s Day!
“I celebrated Mother’s Day 2011 by begging my then three-year-old son to let me sleep-in as my Mother’s Day present. That was at 6:47 in the morning. By 7:06 AM I was awakened by a trumpet solo from my dear, dear, baby boy. Yes, a trumpet solo for my Mother’s Day present. A trumpet solo right in my face as I lay in bed. I actually felt the toy trumpet hit the tip of my nose several times during the performance. Okay, okay, I’m up. With a hint of sarcasm, I thought to myself, “happy Mother’s Day to me” as I shot up and out of bed at 7:07 AM. I could either send Noah away with a stern mommy-look and try to fall back to sleep or…I could…dance. By 7:08AM on Mother’s Day 2011, I was dancing in gleeful circles with my little trumpeter swinging from my arms. I felt so blessed to be celebrating another Mother’s Day, and especially this particular Mother’s Day. Here’s why…
Seven months prior to the Mother’s Day trumpet solo, I was a mother who held her second child, her four-day-old daughter, as she lay dying in my arms. I was a mother who was going to spend hours upon hours in a tiny chapel on the first floor of the Children’s Hospital of Illinois, begging God to let me keep one of his angels here on earth; while the doctors upstairs tried desperately to save Ella’s life through science and medicine. I was a mother who would be defined through living nine months of life with one child safe at home and the other fighting for each of her next breaths in a critical care unit, hours away from the safety of our home.
I would come to realize that the title “mother” is the greatest of all gifts to be given and received. It is the gift of song. It is the gift of dance. It is the gift of unimaginable strength. It is the gift of a love so pure, and yet, so powerful. It is the gift of setting priorities and defining what moments truly matter in life. It is the gift of belly-laughs. It is the gift of overcoming fears. It is the gift of finding yourself through loving someone else unconditionally. It is the gift of never-forgotten memories. It is the gift of understanding that the ordinary moments of life are all actually the extraordinary ones. It is the gift of a celebratory perspective of life.
Last year, not only did I celebrate an early morning trumpet solo by dancing to the tune, but I also celebrated many of the most common and ordinary moments of motherhood. I celebrated washing a batch of pink, girl laundry at home. I celebrated washing Ella’s hospital blankets because at one point in our journey, I was told my daughter probably would not survive the night. Here I was, months later, with my first batch of pink laundry. I was celebrating laundry! I celebrated every midnight moment where I was awake comforting my daughter through dealing with the pain of pervious surgeries to try and fix her broken heart. I celebrated even though those midnight moments were shared with critical-care nurses. I was celebrating lack of sleep! I celebrated being able to once again hold my daughter in my arms. It would be the first time in several months I was able to hold her after the moment I held her as she lay dying in my arms at four days old. I was celebrating the numbness in my arms because of holding a chubby baby! I even celebrated baby poop. There was time when no one knew if my daughter’s bowels would ever work normal. I was celebrating poop!
I realized that not only were we gifted the title “mother” from our little ones, but through that gift we were given ordinary moments to either take for granted or to celebrate as extraordinary ones. I call it CellaBRATING LIFE.
I wish you an ordinary Mother’s Day 2012 full of laundry, midnight shenanigans, numb arms, normal bowel movements and maybe, if you’re lucky, even an early morning trumpet solo!”
I just took the last final exam of my college career. What does this have to do with cruising? Why would I waste my time going to college if I’m going to move onto a boat in the near future? Most immigration systems follow a “points” system. For each desirable attribute a potential immigrant has, points are added. Once you reach a certain threshold of points, you’re in. It really is that simple. Know English? 15 points! Have a college degree? 30 points! You get the picture.
Michele and I aren’t planning on emigrating from the US while we are cruising… but who knows? Perhaps we will get to New Zealand and decide we want to stay. I was four classes away so I figured the “points” gained were worth it. I absolutely hate school, however. With a passion. Don’t get me wrong… I love learning. I just hate school. It sucks the life out of me. You know what my classes remaining were for a computer science degree? English 1, English 2, Speech, and Java Programming. Really? Worthless is an understatement.
In the end, my classes didn’t teach me anything. I’m glad that I got the degree, however. I’ll hopefully never stop learning, but I dearly hope I have stopped schooling.
Follow your dreams. Follow the Horizon.
This will be our last NaBloPoMo post. We know that it isn’t the end of the month yet. We feel like we are posting just to post, instead of for the right reasons. We don’t want to clog your inboxes and feed readers unless it is worth reading. We will be returning to our normal Wednesday and Saturday post schedule… see you Saturday!
It has come to my attention that I am not the “typical” boat wife. Apparently, a significantly larger percentage of men in the boating world would like to go cruising than their long-suffering wives… patiently rolling their eyes as the husband goes on again about the freedom of the open sea and other such nonsense as she sees it. Therefore, I have decided to take up my little soapbox today in the name of the crazy wives who actually think that the cruising life sounds like the best idea our husbands have ever come up with.
Let me start by saying that when Dan first brought up the idea a few years ago I actually laughed in his face. This was the most ridiculous idea he had ever come up with. We didn’t sail, I’m somewhat afraid of water, and we don’t even eat fish! No thank you. Also, I was enjoying our life and looking forward to a little family and the white picket fence; June Cleaver was my subconscious hero. In short, I just wasn’t ready yet for such a drastic dream.
Then a year ago, Dan starting looking into cruising again, more seriously this time. He brought the idea to me somewhat more cautiously optimistic than the first time, backing himself up with some realistic expectations. His enthusiasm caught my attention more than anything else. He let me know that he really wanted to go cruising but he needed me to make my own decision about it; he couldn’t let himself get any deeper without becoming emotionally committed to the dream. So I decided to do my own research and that I would make a real decision after our cruise to the Southern Caribbean, where we would be spending some time on smaller boats that would give me at least some idea of what sailing was about.
The first conclusion I came to was that living on a boat was definitely possible for us. (I know that sounds a little obvious, but it was a pretty big leap for a girl who had never been on a sailboat before.) Now I needed to decide if this was really what I wanted for me. Not because I loved my husband and wanted to make him happy, not because it would be a nice experience for my son, but because this was my dream. As I read and listened, a yearning started to build in my heart that was becoming my own. Finally, near the end of our cruise, I was standing on the top deck of our ship looking out at the huge moon reflecting off of the ocean waves and I knew: my life will not be complete until I see this scene from my own deck.
I want to encourage the wives out there, take your husband seriously when he brings you a dream that is in his heart. I believe that we find the person who was designed to unlock our deepest desires and greatest potential, but we are also the person who could crush that potential much more easily. Do you want to be the wife standing in the wings with a leash, or do you want to be a partner in a fantastic adventure?
This sums up why we wanted to move there. Bay of Islands, NZ
NaBloPoMo asks “What sports did you play as a child?” Michele and I certainly didn’t sail. I played pretty much every sport an American child in the Midwest can play, just not sailing. We’re talking basketball, baseball, football, floor hockey, soccer, swimming, track and field, you name it I played it. So how did Michele and I come up with the crazy idea to sail full time?
A few years ago I had watched the documentary [amazon_link id=”9492259486″ target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Ice Blink[/amazon_link]… At the time I thought little more about it than “Wow that’s cool.” The seed of sailing (and crusing) had been planted however. As Michele and I became more and more disillusioned with money and “stuff” we began searching for alternatives. Cruising was not at the top of the list, surprisingly. We seriously explored moving to New Zealand. New Zealand is in the midst of a brain drain as most of its young educated people move elsewhere, primarily Australia. Because of this brain drain, IT workers (and especially network engineers) wanting to move into the country are on somewhat of a fast track approval.
We went so far as to tell our families we were moving to live the life of Kiwis… but what was the life of a Kiwi? Our primary motivation was to reprioritize our lives away from what is fake and towards what is real. We started talking to people from New Zealand to get a feel for what life there really is all about. We would still need to work full time, if only to keep our fast track status. Slowly, we figured out that the freedom we were searching for doesn’t have as much to do with “where” as with “when” and “what” you are doing. Time-freedom is hard to come by. Cruising fulfills both aspects of what drove Michele and I to want to move to New Zealand: time-freedom and exploration. The ability to set sail within a few hours notice for whatever port you would like definitely is quite alluring for the both of us. The time-freedom to explore those ports, as well as ourselves, is what calls us to the sea.
This post is part of our NaBloPoMo series. Follow the Horizon is participating in National Blog Post Month (NaBloPoMo). NaBloPoMo is for bloggers who commit to post each day in the month of May.
A few nights ago I couldn’t sleep. When this happens, I usually find myself watching a TED Talk. Michele and I were in the middle of trying to sell my car (see Good Bye Awesome Car, Hello Future for the whole story) and I was thinking about stuff. The kind of stuff that fills up our basements, attics, kitchens, garages, houses, and lives. We have a lot of stuff. Michele, Carter, and I live in a normal sized house… but we have rooms that we haven’t opened the door to for months. That brings me to the talk I was watching a few nights ago. In it writer and designer Graham Hill explores if having less “stuff” can actually lead to more happiness. Michele and I think so. Check it out for yourself below.
Americans have so much stuff that its possible to have shows like Hoarders and Storage Wars… maybe its time to look at the alternative?
We are normal (well ok, not so normal) people that have a dream to see the world and live life as it was meant to be. We both have successful careers in the healthcare industry, even in this terrible economy. We want to break free of the current cycle of trading time for dollars and dollars for more and more things we don't need. So, we have decided to forego the fruits of our economic success and "retire" well before we are 30 and set out to see what is over the Horizon.
We are normal (well ok, not so normal) people that have a dream to see the world and live life as it was meant to be. We both have successful careers in the healthcare industry, even in this terrible economy. We want to break free of the current cycle of trading time for dollars and dollars for more and more things we don't need. So, we have decided to forego the fruits of our economic success and "retire" well before we are 30 and set out to see what is over the Horizon.