Focus

Focus is a good thing but I'm starting to think I am suffering from too much of a good thing. The truck is due in about 12 hours. People keep asking me if I'm excited and what our plans are for when we get to the coast. I tell them "yes" and then say something about being in the Keys come New Year's Day, but the fact is I'm not and I don't have a clue. Moving day has been the focus of my efforts for so long that, at the moment, there is nothing else.

Here's what I imagine. The boat is in salt water; steering vane working, deck repaired, and the mast up. The boat is shed of the debris 7 weeks on the hard and 800 miles on a truck left behind, the sails are bent on, dodger and Bimini installed, and the dinghy is ready to dinghy. Someone throws me the last dock line, the final act that starts our life of living on the water ... and I just stare at it, mind totally blank.

The fact is I have no idea what my life is going to be like a month or six weeks from now. It has been several years since that last time we sailed on the ocean. Getting Kintala ready overwhelmed The Retirement Project; reducing even the number of nights we could spend off the dock in our little lake in Carlyle. For the last two years every spare dime and extra hour has gone into getting ready for moving day; and I'm not really sure what happens the day after.

I hope though, we keep meeting people like the folks here at Tradewinds. This morning a new friend gave us a cribbage board for a going away gift. It is well used and clearly has been a part of his family for many years. It became an heirloom for our family the moment I touched it. Then he taught me how to play cribbage; beating me rather soundly two straight games. I think he was trying to let me win, but it will take a few rainy days being pinned in the boat before I get good at this game.

Maybe I need to focus on it a little more.