Living Two Lives

Ever felt like you were more than one person, shoved into the same life as the other people you also were? Strange, I know, but that’s how it feels sometimes, living with one foot on land and one on the boat. While I genuinely enjoy the dichotomy, and love coming “home” to my boat, I do wish that I could more firmly commit to the aquatic life - it would be much more efficient. And it’s in this inefficiency that I am reminded most acutely of my multiple-life-same-body situation.

It goes something like this: Wake up, feel the breeze from the open hatch over my berth. It’s still dark outside, and the boat is rocking quietly. I check the day’s weather (to see if I should close the hatches or not), shower at the marina, dress back onboard my boat, grab my briefcase, and head out the door.

*flash*

I’m driving in rush hour traffic, in a very large and busy city. I park in a huge parking garage in the middle of downtown, walk three blocks to my office, and take the elevator like everyone else. Fortunately my desk has a window next to it, but all I can see is concrete for the next eight to ten hours. Walk back to the truck, sit in traffic for another hour.

*flash*

Blurry haze of two overlapping lives - an impeccably dressed businessman boarding a boat set up for cruising and distance sailing but filled with the clutter of liveaboard activity. Dress shoes briefly meet worn nonskid - fortunately the leather soles don’t mark it.

*flash*

After a change of clothes and the day’s assigned boat work, I’m now in more comfortable boat attire. Drinking a cold beverage and sitting in my cockpit, I look out at the water as the sun sets peacefully in the distance.

The lives are so different that my head still spins for a minute after I get home and wonder “what the hell happened”?

But then I tell myself the day that I sell the vehicle, stash the dress clothes, and slim down the boat’s accoutrements for a lighter weight lifestyle is coming very soon. Until then, though, this schizophrenia serves as a reminder to make continual, unrelenting progress towards my goals - an impetus for one step forward every day.