Four Walls

[GaryMayo]

Originally Posted by wingNwing

* It's so amazingly beautiful out there!

Found this in another post, and it moved me to tears. I have spent the last 30 year's as a shopkeeper. Four walls. Twelve hour days on a good day, often eighteen hours. The long days, you figure, why bother going home, and you sleep in a chair.

Finally, last year, I bought a sailboat, and almost instantly, traded up to the largest sailboat my bathtub sized lake would accommodate. That helped. Fresh air, water. Sounds of sailing, water, birds, bugs, frogs. I had sat out sailing for 25 years, chasing the work ethic.

Back at work, (still putting in the same hours) I come here often to read and live out other people's words.

Someday, someday, I will be free of my walls, and bathtub lake, and feel what all of you experience. I am 56, an aquward age to retire. Not old enough to get retirement, and not saved enough to finanace the transisition out of pocket. Call an auctioneer, and sell everything, maybe it would be enough, but who knows? The one thing about money, it is pretty slippery.

In 2005, my last vacation, we drove 17 days and back, to Key West. Spent two days, and one night there, and several days on different Keys. I still think about it. Everyday.

My wife hates sailing. Sees no practical reason for doing it. She likes gardening, being home. Afraid of heeling, she refuses to crew in winds of over ten mph. Wind picks up, I start grinning, she starts screaming.

My health is good enough I still work all the time, but for how many more years? And why? My business is two blocks from a homeless shelter. When they come in, I give them the bums rush, back out the door. Lazy drunks piss me off. However, what do they have, I do not have? ?? Freedom.

To those, living the dream, good for you. Enjoy it.

Yesterday, I tried going to a web site specializing in my sailboat, and it was gone.

www.clipper-sailor.net. I checked with godaddy and the site expired Oct 30. The phone number was listed, and the man's wife answered. Jim died of a heart attack April 23rd. With her permission, I contacted his web host, and paid the fees to light the sight for another year. I will archive and republish his work on my website www.clippermarine.org so it does not get lost to future folks needing info on these William Crealock designed sailboats. Jim's sailboat is on the hard, full of rainwater, and his wife wants to sell it, so the $75 dollar a month storage fees stop.

Is Jim's life and death, a warning flag for me? Will my web site disappear quietly as my sailboat on the hard fills with rainwater?

I want so desperately to see a way out of Nebraska to ANYWHERE there is a slip leading to Blue Water. I want to do it before my wife sells my dreams on Craig's List

[carstenb]

Gary, yours is a tough post to answer. I've thought about what to write. You're yearning for the freedom that you got a tiny taste of in florida.

I'm sixty. 28 years ago, I looked around and decided I could no longer live the life I was living. I made some tough decisions and got out. I know, easier to do when you are in your 30's than in your fifties.

I've loved even minute of my life since then, even when it was not exactly showing me a smiley face.

I've never met anyone who came back and relived their life. As far as I'm concerned, you only get one shot at it. I guess you need to spend some time with yourself making some very tough decisions.

good luck. whatever you decide - hope it works out for you. and no regrets afterwards.

[Seaworthy Lass]

Hi Gary
I was very sad reading your post. Usually I am optimistic and full of good suggestions, but I just don't know what to say. It is so hard if your wife's dreams don't coincide with yours. Fear is a huge drawback to enjoying sailing, as is seasickness (although I've never been seasick, I get carsick and I just couldn't imagine having to tolerate that for any length of time).

Even if you don't have a chance to head offshore, enjoy your time on the lake. We had 20 odd years owning a small trailerable boat, as work commitments didn't allow anything else, and we had the time of our lives on that boat.

[Greenhand]

Thing is, I have found that wherever I go, there I am.

[Kenomac]

Wow Gary, we have so much in common. Same age, self employed and my wife felt the same way about our Hunter sailboat as your wife feels about sailing, even though it was originally her idea to buy a boat.

We made a couple of changes three years ago which have greatly improved our lives. First, my wife changed her work status to part time which has enabled her to schedule extended time off. Second, I decided that if teachers only need to work 180 days of the year and it's socially acceptable, then that's all I need to work (most of the friends and family around us are teachers). So now I'm on vacation six months of the year and follow the boarding school schedule.

At first it was difficult to let go of control as a self employed guy, mostly because I always felt as though things would fall apart if I was absent, but the money still seems to come in... although less of it. But that's OK, because the enjoyment factor of cruising six months of the year more than makes up for the addition "stuff" we would have bought with the money. We have a basement full of "stuff;" I'd rather have a boatload of memories. We've also found that we live quite a bit more frugally while cruising.

The one final item we needed to address was the boat. The day sailing Hunter 450 always scared my wife... every time it would heal over and all the internal contents of the boat would be thrown to the other side as we slid off the cockpit cushions. I'd be smiling and having a great time, while she was terrified of tipping over. To remedy this issue.... we traded up to the Oyster 53. She loves it. A good heavy displacement boat instills confidence in everyone who comes aboard. My advice to you: Head off to the boat shows next year and maybe have your wife pick out a couple of boats she likes. Maybe even a catamaran that doesn't heal will be your answer.

Good Luck

P.S.: I'm sorry I picked on you new Head.

[rognvald]

Gary,
The words of the German philospher Arthur Schopenhauer describe your situation: Mensch kann tun was er will;
er Kann aber nicht wollen was er will.

Translation: One can choose what to do, but not what to want.

[GaryMayo]

Originally Posted by Kenomac

I'm sorry I picked on you new Head.

Maybe she is afraid of wag bags, everyone on here seems to be! Lol

After my post, I sent a message to my aging in-laws, asking if they would like to have my wife stay with them, to help them with their health problems, allowing them to stay in their home. They are pushing 80. I then called my wife and told her she could go stay with them, if she wanted to. Everyone is thinking about it. Des Moines IA is also absent large lakes, so my wife would go alone.

That would leave me to sell everything, and head towards big water. I am thinking Florida.

[Greenhand]

Originally Posted by GaryMayo

Maybe she is afraid of wag bags, everyone on here seems to be! Lol

After my post, I sent a message to my aging in-laws, asking if they would like to have my wife stay with them, to help them with their health problems, allowing them to stay in their home. They are pushing 80. I then called my wife and told her she could go stay with them, if she wanted to. Everyone is thinking about it. Des Moines IA is also absent large lakes, so my wife would go alone.

That would leave me to sell everything, and head towards big water. I am thinking Florida.

I hope you meant to destroy that relationship, because the way you phrased it here, you just found a place for your wife to go and told her to leave and let you get on with your own thing. I am sure she will find eldercare every bit as rewarding as you will find sailing.

[skipmac]

My situation in some ways is quite similar. I have the sailing dream, my wife is a gardener. I have threatened to have our yard designated the North Florida Botanical Gardens and charge admission. The wife also has some issues with sailing, not with heeling but she is very sucesptible to motion sickness. Like your wife, much over 10 kts things go downhill but in our case she feels naseous instead of afraid. She also has a very serious concern with skin cancer and must watch her sun exposure very carefully.

But the good news is she loves travel and being by the water so we have found a compromise. I'll get the boat to some mutually enjoyable location and she will fly there to meet me and stay on the boat. Maybe something like this could work for you. Worth a try.

[GaryMayo]

My in-laws hate me. Understandable, check out my head thread, lots of folks hate me. Lol

My wife thinks a weekend here and there may be enough to help her parents, but that is blindly unrealistic. They need to sell and move into assisted living, or move someone in their home to help them. As grumpy old Germans, good luck finding non family to put up with him. He is a bearcat.

Most husband's would say, nothing doing, you are married, they can pay for healthcare if they need it. I on the other hand, see a rainbow in this thundercloud.

Ball is in their court. If the family wants to come together to help the parents, even if that stay is extended, I will work around this, and turn lemons into lemonade (on the beach)

[GaryMayo]

Originally Posted by Greenhand

I hope you meant to destroy that relationship, because the way you phrased it here, you just found a place for your wife to go and told her to leave and let you get on with your own thing. I am sure she will find eldercare every bit as rewarding as you will find sailing.

We are committed to one another. She would never leave me, and stop making me miserable. Lol. Married 30 years. College sweethearts.

Maybe the sailing, is the carrot on a stick. Karma has a way to influence people into action. If sailing were not available, as a hunger, would I want to let my wife go to help her patents?

Her parents are richer than Midas, but wealth does not automatically create personality. My wife and I have never gotten a red cent from them. They are not giving people. Not in their nature. However, they do need care, and maybe this a way to satisify everyone.

My wife's sister is with them now, arranging for back surgery for mom. They live six hours away RT from us, and twice that far from my wife's sister. It is clear, something will soon be in flux, just not clear yet what.

[SabreKai]

Good post Gary. Sometimes you just have to say enough is enough and step off the idiot treadmill they conned you into thinking was normal and right and proper and all the rest of it. So far in my life I've hit pretty much all the goals, Good job, nice car, had a home, been married, been divorced, just about every thing but having a kid.

For what? So some CEO can rake in millions or some share holder a bigger dividend? Baloney.

I went down to Cuba with a buddy from work last November and he died down there. That hit me pretty hard, him working 31 years in the same job and cashing out like that, up to debt to his eyeballs and facing years of work to play the game we all get sucked into playing.

Since then my attitude to the treadmill has drastically changed, and not for the better. I reached the legal retirement age a couple of years ago, and my pension is a joke, but with it and money still in the bank from the sale of my house I figure I can go cruising til I croak.

So, I'm busting my butt to get my boat ready for launch at the beginning of May and am planning on shutting down the job and my apartment by the end of June. I don't care if I have to sleep on the floor plates and cook off a Coleman stove in the cockpit, I'm done. Stick a fork in me, I'm done.

[GaryMayo]

Originally Posted by SabreKai

Good post Gary. Sometimes you just have to say enough is enough and step off the idiot treadmill they conned you into thinking was normal and right and proper and all the rest of it. So far in my life I've hit pretty much all the goals, Good job, nice car, had a home, been married, been divorced, just about every thing but having a kid.

For what? So some CEO can rake in millions or some share holder a bigger dividend? Baloney.

I went down to Cuba with a buddy from work last November and he died down there. That hit me pretty hard, him working 31 years in the same job and cashing out like that, up to debt to his eyeballs and facing years of work to play the game we all get sucked into playing.

Since then my attitude to the treadmill has drastically changed, and not for the better. I reached the legal retirement age a couple of years ago, and my pension is a joke, but with it and money still in the bank from the sale of my house I figure I can go cruising til I croak.

So, I'm busting my butt to get my boat ready for launch at the beginning of May and am planning on shutting down the job and my apartment by the end of June. I don't care if I have to sleep on the floor plates and cook off a Coleman stove in the cockpit, I'm done. Stick a fork in me, I'm done.

I remember being pretty young and playing with kids on another block. Pretty girl said, you can kiss me if you want, and closed her eyed, and puckered her lips. I remember freezing in panic.

My whole life has pretty much been frozen. Afraid to move, afraid of taking a chance.

In two days, my deposit is due on my slip.

Do I kiss the girl, or do I freeze, and pay my next years dues on a small lake in Nebraska?

[goboatingnow]

Gary if you value your relationship don't trash it to go sailing. compromise. Find a path that both of you can enjoy. The alternate is heartbreak. There are many ways to enjoy sailing that don't necessarily mean disappearing over the horizon.

Dave

[carstenb]

Never pass up an opportunity to kiss a sweet gal