Change is dif­fi­cult for almost every­one. And even I have to admit (to the inter­net, not to any­body I know per­son­al­ly) that when Sep­tem­ber rolled around I was hit with some major anx­i­ety. I was going to buy a boat and move on it in a mat­ter or weeks and my life was nev­er going to be the same. I was freaked.

Obvi­ous­ly that didn’t hap­pen. Part of the rea­son was prac­ti­cal­i­ty. My bud­get was so tight that buy­ing a boat, adding the solar sys­tem and hav­ing mon­ey to live on until I was gain­ful­ly employed was going to be real­ly, real­ly dif­fi­cult. Keep­ing my boat options fair­ly small, and like the boat I end­ed up with a bit of a project. And a project that I would have to tack­le while liv­ing aboard.

Then things changed up here and we end­ed up with more help on the moun­tain. While it made it eas­i­er for me to get away, the knowl­edge that I could alle­vi­at­ed the trapped, suf­fo­cat­ing feel­ings. Mak­ing the need to flee sub­side. It also opened sev­er­al options for the future of the moun­tain. Giv­ing me poten­tial goals to work towards up here if I want­ed to stay. (Which I men­tion briefly here.)

I did final­ly come to the con­clu­sion that I still want­ed to get a boat and live aboard in the islands. But by then the avail­able boats weren’t as stel­lar as they had been ear­li­er in the sea­son. I did come across a few boats that seemed like great options. The two most promis­ing were a Cal 29 and a Tar­tan 30. But nei­ther felt right inside. I have to admit that part of me won­dered if that was because they weren’t the right boats, or if it was just buried anx­i­ety.  If it was anx­i­ety, was it fear of change, or a log­i­cal con­cern about my lim­it­ed budget?

Could it be that part of the rea­son that this boat felt right is because I knew it would take sev­er­al months to get it up to snuff? That it gave me an excuse to post­pone the major life change that I was work­ing toward? I have decid­ed it real­ly doesn’t mat­ter. It is okay to be afraid when chang­ing every­thing you know. (Side note: Yay for shad­ow work. I could not have admit­ted this a year ago.)

By the time I have the boat ready to go and mon­ey in the mov­ing fund noth­ing will stop me. Not nec­es­sar­i­ly because I won’t be anx­ious or afraid, but because I am too cheap, and val­ue my time too much to have put that much time and mon­ey in to a project just to aban­don it.

So did this post have a point? Not real­ly, I just want­ed to share my expe­ri­ences with this. Because while I admit to being strange and abnor­mal I think this is per­fect­ly nor­mal. (Which might be a first for me.)