Countdown

With just 4 work days between me and the life I have dreamed about, things are getting a bit hectic. We’ve been frantically dealing with last minute details like: shredding 25 hard drives and 26 backup tapes; buying a watermaker, swim ladder, coffee roasting drum; fleshing out the amazing first aid kit that Vick’s mom made with prescriptions etc; trying to cram in as much time with friends as we possibly can; etc. We are in a strange state of limbo that leaves us feeling neither excited nor particularly stressed. It’s hard to be too stressed when you are counting down to a dream life, and it’s hard to be excited when you have so much to do. Instead I find myself looking ahead and feeling brief moments of exhilaration which I quickly squelch so that I can stay focused. It’s like dreaming about someone else’s life. So in lieu of a real blog post, I’m going to drown you with some snapshots of the lighter moments of the last week. Stick with us. In just two short weeks I’ll be writing fascinating accounts of our trip south, replete with the full emotional bounty of the first days of our new life!

Vick and the kids are heading to New England this weekend to start saying goodbye to all of our East Coast friends and family. I’ll follow a week later and spend a week and a half there before we all return to Convivia to start the 3 week countdown to casting off. At this point I’m suspended in this twilight zone between the elation that this new life brings, and the stress of leaving behind so much that we’ve built (in our communities, in our relationships, and at work) and the stress of what we still must do to get off the dock. I know that in 35 days, as we are provisioning for our trip south, things will look entirely different. I know too that in 60 days, when we are in Mexico and have settled into the new tempo of a cruising life, that things will look different still. What’s strange is that I have less perception of what those feelings will be than I have for almost anything else I’ve ever done, in spite of the fact that we have been planning to do this thing for 10 years. ...

Today marks three months until departure. Or at least until the earliest possible departure. We’ve got 97 items on the list, so while we are still fighting a deficit (if one item = one day), at least we aren’t loosing much ground. This is a work weekend, so I hope to cross off a few big items. Wish me luck!