As I am leaving America - and a reliable internet connection - behind , I am downloading half-dozen books to my Kindle. While I haven't yet read Julian Barnes' acclaimed novel, "The Sense of an Ending", I need to borrow his title. It is not lost on me that he chose the word THE, not just A....sense of an ending, as if to impart even more finality and weight to this particular ending. There is absolutely no doubt that I have just experience THAT kind of ending.....substantial, significant, and permanent. Yet with the changes so sweeping and rapid, and too raw and recent to have benefited from retrospection, today as I fly halfway across the globe to rejoin Eric and David on Andiamo, I am left with THE SENSE and not yet the meaning (should there ever be any).

At the moment, the overall SENSE, is profound fatigue. I have spent the last seven weeks closing down - Ending - the life David and I built together these 33 years. That may land a bit melodramatic: after all, the facts would say that I merely saw to the details of the sale of a house. But to me it felt like oh so much more - physically, emotionally and mentally. The comprehensive Excel spreadsheet I prepared (what a surprise!) of what I needed to do these past weeks reads like a Project Report. The long hours and level of detail involved were so intense I kept feeling like I should be drawing a salary! Despite considering myself a consummate organizer, completing the packing up of all this STUFF, finding affordable storage, choosing a rental condo for our visit home next season, dealing with the tax stuff and the financial stuff and the insurance stuff and the house sale itself, not to mention the impact of leaving the country for 9 months, created the overwhelming SENSE of, well, overwhelm. More specifically and accurately perhaps, what I have had is the SENSE of enormous responsibility, compounded and exaggerated by bearing this (unwanted) burden virtually alone. Sure it made division-of-labor sense for me to handle this solo while David and Eric faced their own very real challenges continuing on with another 3000 arduous nautical miles of full-on ocean sailing (wow!)....., but it still stinks.... and I have experienced it as one of the most stressful periods of my life. (If there was any upside, I now know, without a doubt, that I can live alone if need be - hey, honey, you might want to take note!)

But deep down, that's all just griping. I think what has really made this so difficult has been that pervasive, gnawing undercurrent: the SENSE of a LOSS, of decline, of being on the back nine with the best (at least materially) behind us. In choosing round-the-world sailing, homelessness was surely the financially and logistically prudent corollary. It was a necessary, freely-chosen, certainly understood and ultimately inevitable loss, but a hard one nonetheless. There is now the SENSE of no turning back: a lifestyle gone, a chapter (or a volume) closed, a cache of memories left behind. The cumulative effect is THE (palpable, for-your-consideration, life-changing) SENSE of an ENDING. It has warranted, deserved and commanded my attention.

Saturated in this SENSE of an Ending, I have had my tears, said my goodbyes, packed and repacked my bags, slept in 6 beds in 13 days. I have done my due diligence, backed up my documents, filed away the paperwork, moved my former life into four - count them - storage units and turned the proverbial keys. I truly appreciate all of you who helped me through this difficult transition: Stan who relentlessly packed with me, Ann who is acting as our land-based agent, Mom & Dad and Mary & Steve and Katie & Ben who sheltered me in my homeless state, my girlfriends who let me vent and vent and vent, Frances & David who coaxed me out on the town and lifted my spirits, all who listened and supported and encouraged.... Now I cross this ocean to meet my guys embarking on this unique opportunity we three have been given: to travel around the world on our very own (nearly) self-sustaining boat.

While I cannot say I see any "meaning" in all this, allowing myself to be deeply immersed these past months in The Sense of an ENDING has been more than griping and wound-licking. Sitting with and acknowledging this momentous (to me) closure, is now ever so slowly starting to clear space for a future-focus: one with possibility and wonder and even freedom. It is fostering The Sense of a blank slate, of a fresh start, of the faintest awakening of The Sense of a BEGINNING. Perhaps homeless, debt-free living has its merits after all. What if homeless translates to home free? There is no way to know what awaits me on this journey, but with the clock ticking and less time to write this new chapter in life, I best be getting on my way. ....Polynesia here I come.