The blog hasn't been far from my mind, just my fingertips. I write posts as I'm walking Luna or while driving and dodging drivers who are more impolite than I remember from five years ago. When I'm shopping at consignment shops (only one but there could be more before our trip ends) I write as well, although those posts are about abundance vs. simplicity and I figure, "Where's the fun in that?" before refocusing my thoughts on buying things I don't need. I have yet to sit down at the computer until now. I miss the blog like a friend I no longer see but is only a phone call away. I haven't written the final post yet, as you can see. I am struggling with the issue of what to do.

In the meantime, I have had a birthday (seen here celebrating a week early, one of 4 celebrations with friends who have been like family since the early 1980's and 90's) and find it hard to get my words out when someone asks how old I am. How could time have flown by so quickly? How will I make every moment count with the years remaining? These are some things I consider without writing them down until now.

Here is the part about sailing. It occurs to me that the transition from living full time as cruisers to land dwellers hit only after arriving in Charlotte where it all began. When we got to Maine and moved off Skylark in July, it was definitely a time of upheaval. But Ed still lived on the boat during the week and I was busy getting us settled in a small town in my mother's home. We moved into a large enough bedroom but had to be smart about where to store things (similar to moving onto a small sailboat) and although we had a car, Ed used it for the boatyard while I drove a dented Subaru for putting around town, which in some perverse way reminded me of getting around in a dinghy. Living in a small town where everything is within walking distance felt manageable; similar to how we lived on the boat. Simple. Small. Contained.

Then I got sick with Polymyalgia Rheumatica, knocking me off my feet literally and figuratively. A few weeks later I was on medication and functioning fairly well but the disease is still with me and never far from my consciousness. The point is, I was totally consumed by that soon after we got to land and this was in the midst of the most bizarre presidential election our nation can recall. Like living in an altered state.

So here we are now, back where we started. It is here that I am finally feeling the effects of this massive transition we've undertaken. Charlotte is a large and prosperous city. Cars are shiny, houses fancy, people fashionable and distracted with electronic devices, new construction on every corner. The traffic is bad at all times every day. Our personal history prior to cruising is enveloping us with memories of a life now gone. Long-term friends, newer ones we met who were our cruising mentors and our fantastic kids are here and all this takes us back to how we used to live. I was a busy professional with a private practice and a reputation for knowing what I was doing. Now I am lost in the crowds. Ed owned a business for many years before managing vacant land for a large corporation. He is lost as well. We drove by our Charlotte home recently and felt nothing other than gratitude for having spent years in such a lovely and private space. It was large enough; never too large. I am struck by how big our lives were here, how contained they were on Skylark and yet how massive our experience as fulltime cruisers. If we returned to live here we fear we'd be engulfed into a rapidly flowing river, tossed around and spit out on a bank before walking back into the madness of living and working in a large and affluent city. It's not that we couldn't do it or wouldn't love being near the kids and close friends. It's that we would be lost, our five years living as gypsies becoming blurred around the edges, as though we were never transformed, simply removed for a brief spell of time.

That's what I think about. Except while shopping in consignment stores.