Another Goodbye

This will probably be my last day as a sailor, my last day on my boat. Between the challenges Ricky is having and the challenges I am having, he has decided that he doesn't want to do this. After today he will be staying ashore. I understand and appreciate his decision; this is not his dream, it's mine. Given that I cannot get on or off the boat without help, and that there is no immediate solution, it looks like this may be it.

You can probably hear the tentative in this. I am ever hopeful for solutions to present themselves. I am ever seeking ways to make things work. It is what I do. Yet I don't see much out there for me in this one. Face it, who wants to give up their life for mine? I find once again that life is what you make of it for yourself; you cannot depend on others to make your life happen. It's just a reality hitting me sooner than it hits others.

Of course a miracle might happen. Someone might suddenly appear in my life who will be the helper and companion I need and want. Someone might magically arise from nowhere to help me achieve this dream of "one last summer". It is possible, just highly unlikely.

Instead what is more probable is that we will take the boat into dock today, unload what we need for now and then return next week to strip it. We will take all "personal" items, leaving onboard the shore tackle and those additional things that will make it easy to sell the boat. Then, once it is cleared and ready, I will list it for sail with a boat broker. That is the more probably outcome.

Part of me feels a sense of relief. Perhaps this is just too much. Perhaps I need to start giving up these things that I want to do and accept that there are now limitations on my life, limitations that will increase no matter how much I try to fight them. Maybe it's time; maybe this is what is supposed to happen. Perhaps this is what  the middle stage of this disease will look like, acceptance of my limits and boundaries; realization of what I cannot instead of what I can.

I have had a sailboat for the last 16 years. I have had boats of some type for my whole life. I have always been on the water. To be honest there was a part of me that hoped to end my life on my boat, to see my last day as a day on the water. Alas this does not  look likely. It is more likely that today I will say goodbye to the sea. It is another goodbye in what is becoming a long series, too long a series. There are too many goodbyes.