Sometimes Nothing is All You Need

Monday January 27, 2013

If you’ve been following our Facebook page, you may have noticed me spending a little of my time complaining that we can not seem to find a weather window to get to Florida and we’ll be forever stuck in Mexico.

Today, I decided to let that go. I can’t control the weather. I can’t control the universe. I can’t control much of anything, really. But what I can control is my outlook. Yes, we are stuck in Mexico. No, there is nothing in the forecast that shows we’ll be leaving anytime soon. So instead of sitting here whining about the one thing I my life that I can even complain about, I decided to sit back and get a little perspective.

All of my friends back home are suffering through one of the worst winters we’ve had in years. Not only are they shutting down schools, but they even closing down places of business and sections of road altogether. People are only leaving their house unless it is absolutely necessary.

Where am I during all of this? Sitting on a sailboat in Mexico. For the past few days I’d been bummed that we’ve been here so long and I wanted to get a move on to something new, something interesting. We’ve already done town, the beach, the restaurants. What most of our days are filled with now are sitting on the boat, only getting off every few days when groceries run low, or maybe once a week, just to force ourselves back into civilization. I was bored with it and I wanted a change. Then while checking the weather again this morning and realizing that we very well might be stuck here until the middle or end of February, I finally accepted it. And then I realized, this is not a bad place to be.

It was like a curtain lifting over my eyes. I started to take pleasure in doing the same nothing that we’ve been doing for weeks now. I made a cup of coffee this morning and savored it. I sat in the cockpit and got work done on my computer, taking in the beautiful sights around me. I let the sun warm my skin and then jumped in the teal waters surrounding me to cool off (and sneak in a bath). I spent my afternoon swaying to music playing through the speakers and making fresh salsa. I mixed up a fruity little cocktail and watched a beautiful sunset from my back porch.

There really hasn’t been much of a variance in my schedule from what I’ve been doing the past few days, but what did change was my outlook. Did I do anything extreme or out of my ordinary today? No. Basically, I did nothing. But just sometimes, nothing is all you need.