Material Overload

Saturday September 29, 2012

With my leg feeling slightly better (I’m guessing it’s a pulled muscle or torn something from NY that never fully healed) and having been cooped up in the boat for two days it was time for another excursion to shore. Today we wanted to stock up on groceries at Sam’s Club and get a few things at the mall. Or Matt wanted to stock up on groceries and get things at the mall. I wanted to get internet. Thinking our touchpad would save us a lot of space in the backpack compared to my laptop I transferred over all my Office documents and photos to a card which I could throw into the touchpad and retrive. We set out on the three mile walk (each way) to the mall. When we arrived there our fist stop was at the Taco Bell in the food court. This is something we have been craving ever since we left Michigan and have searched out in every town with no avail until now. Sitting at a table with our gorditas I pulled out the touchpad ready to get some work done. Matt took it out of it’s protective case to search for the spot to insert the card I had downloaded all my information to only to find out that our touchpad did not have one. Five days I had been waiting to do this work and I was shut down. I was very disappointed to say the least, but at least I had Taco Bell to lift my spirits.

The next stop along the way was to search for new phone carriers since we are still not happy with our T Mobile service. Wanting to get back to AT&T we found one of their stores in the mall but when explaining to them what we’d like to do they said they did not offer their services for pre-paid plans. Looks like we’ll still be stuck with T Mobile for the next two months. Before crossing the street to pick up a few things at Sam’s Club we wandered through the mall looking in all the store windows. It had been a long time since we’d been in a mall, or really any place that had so many material goods in one location.

If we were back at our normal lives, this is probably where I would be on a Saturday afternoon. It’s hard to tell if I would actually be buying anything since for the past few years I’ve had it ingrained in my mind that I need to save for this trip. But I let my mind wander as if this trip had never been planned at all and I was just a regular girl out to spend some cash. I kept looking in the windows of things I wanted but now could not have. A new lamp or decorative pillow for the house. A comfy sweater and boots that would be great for Fall. The pair of sky blue skinny jeans that I had been looking all over for. Getting rid of all our possessions had been so easy at the time we had done it but for a few moments in that mall, all I wanted was to have it all back. The house, the car, the dog, and the wardrobe full of new clothes. Shaking myself out of it I just kept reminding myself of the tropical beaches that await me. This is all going to be worth it.

Back at the boat we were growing hungry and I was excited to make a BBQ chicken pizza that I had been thinking about all day. Feeling keen on my cooking skills after borrowing a book of ratios from Rode Trip I set out even making my own crust. Going through four difficult to reach areas of the boat I pulled out all the ingredients to get to work. My my wandered to if we were in a house and everything would be at my fingertips. Making a mess of multiple dishes and pans I looked at the sink and thought of all the work I’d have to do later washing them by hand. When Matt tried to ‘assist’ me in the galley topping the pizza crust while I rinsed dishes and put things away we constantly bumped into each other as there is no room for two people in the galley. I thought back to home where there was more counter space than I could ever dream of now. As the pizza came out the toppings were delicious but the crust was as hard as a brick.

I about broke down. For six weeks I had been telling myself that all the changes and difficulties were worth it and after only socializing with other cruisers I had begun to believe it and think that this new life was now normal. But after being thrown back in the ‘real world’ today, even for a few hours I was harshly reminded of how easy I used to have it and how difficult everything now seemed. I’m kind of surprised it took me this long actually, I thought my first breakdown would have been within the first week or two of leaving. But it’s been said of cruising that you’re life is now a roller coaster. When you’re up you’re up and when you’re down you’re down. Thinking about this a little harder I realized I had slid into this life so seamlessly that it hadn’t been much of a roller coaster but a straight line with a few ups which then led me back to normal. I had more frustrating days back on land than I’ve had since we’ve been on the water. Knowing this lifestyle would have it’s difficulties long before I moved aboard I let a lot of the so called bad days go thinking ‘So is the life of cruising‘. So I should be allowed to freak out once in awhile. If my days are usually ‘up’ or ‘normal’ with one bad day every six weeks I should consider myself pretty lucky. There’s always time to perfect that pizza crust and Matt’s rarely if never in the galley. Soon we’ll be surrounded by cruisers again and forget how normal people live with all the land based things we gave up. Plus, there are still a lot of highs to come on our roller coaster.

At least it looked good to start.