Happy Tuesday! I hope you had a wonderful holiday season, and that it continues as the new year approaches. This year has been one for the books for the Mentally Sailing crew. Not only have we started this new process of writing about our lives every week and publishing it for all to follow, but we have had glorious ups and troubling downs as we experienced life on and off of the water. If you’re up to speed, you probably know about it all, and if you’re not, I’m not going to bore you with the details (you can check it all out in our previous blogs). However, it is important not to stay stuck in the past. We must learn and grow, right? It’s always beneficial to review what’s happened as the years change; to accept all the things that have happened and look forward to all the things to come.
I, personally, have always loved the idea of a brand new year. Whether you’ve had a hard year and need something to mark a change in your life, or you’ve had a wonderful year and are simply looking forward to a new season of life, the New Year is inevitable and all we can do is embrace it! So this year, I am challenging myself to take things as they come. I know we’ve essentially been doing that anyway, but I want to accept it this time more than I have been. As most know, change can be sudden and hard to face, especially when it’s something you’ve been looking forward to (like sailing away with your best friend). So, this year, I’m going to do my best to not be disappointed in the things I cannot change, and excited for the things to come.
As far as our plans for 2022, we will be heading West to visit some friends and family, making a stop in San Diego, and then spending a month in Ensenada, BC, Mexico. We have a wedding to attend in February that brings us back to Atlanta, and then once we fly back to Tucson to scoop Buoy, we will be on our way back East. Hopefully, by then we will have a space for our boat at our home port. We will be staying in Norfolk for the next bit until we know what the status is on the boat, and from there we don’t know what’s in store. We’re hoping to visit a friend in Scotland at some point this summer once he sails across, and hopefully explore there for a bit. We even have another family wedding to attend in Colorado, so our suitcases will be used often!
As always, things are up in the air when it comes to boat plans and some trips, but I’m just excited that there are plans to look forward to. It will be a year full of travel and adventure, and I’m so so lucky to do it with my best guy and Buoy.
The thing is, we started this blog this year, and it is something to celebrate. I have loved writing for years, and this gives us an outlet to express our feelings, frustrations, anxieties, excitement, and every other emotion that comes with boat ownership. Though right now we don’t have our boat, I have no intention of giving up this blog. It was meant to be a weekly update of life on the water, how we fixed things, what recipes are easy to make on a boat without refrigeration, etc. But, it has turned into our story. This blog is our lives put down in words, and I think looking back on it one day is going to be the sweetest thing. It doesn’t have to only be about our sea adventures, because we don’t even have those right now. It’s called Mentally Sailing, which is true for both of us. We are always mentally wherever our home is, our home being the boat. The ventures we’ve had on the water will always be some of the best times I’ve ever had, and the loveliest minutes spent together. I will always be happiest when I’m near the ocean, so I truly am always mentally sailing and hoping that this wonderful, strange, confusing little life will lead us back there one day.
We cannot focus on the life that we want, but on the life that we have. 2021 was another hard year, in the middle of a pandemic with restrictions on seeing family and losing our home, but it was also beautiful. It brought me Steve and Buoy. I got to watch so many of my beautiful friends marry the love of their lives. Steve became an uncle to the cutest kiddo. We spent lots and lots of time with family and friends, and we made friendships that will carry on into this new year. Regardless of what is to come from 2022, I hope that you will welcome it with joy and love and that all the anxieties of this next season are put to rest by the comfort in knowing life is what you make it, so make it good.
Happy New Year, (and happy 1 year to Steve and I on NYE). See you next year!
Skye
Mentally Sailing 