We made it to Coeymans Landing on the Hudson yesterday afternoon. The staff here are very helpful and accommodating, and they have the nicest bathrooms I’ve seen since I left my house. I was going to pull Sylphide out and leave her on the hard while I’m away at work, but I decided that I don’t really need to just yet, so here she floats for the next month.
I’ve been burning the candle at both ends for about three weeks. Between packing up the house, downsizing, jumping through all the bureaucratic hoops to get the boat, all the suspense with the sale, moving aboard, and finally transiting 400 and whatever miles at nearly delivery speed, all in close proximity with my family on a boat that I just don’t know very well yet, I haven’t had a minute to relax.
Well when I got to the dock last night, I was feeling pretty good, so I decided I was going to troubleshoot the volt meter issue. I opened up the dash and within seconds, all of my gauges went dead. Nothing on any of them. I looked at the nest of wires that lives behind my instrument cluster and just had no idea where to start. I just felt so incredibly helpless and small.
At that moment, it hit me. The weight of all of of the drastic life changes that I’ve made in the last month all caught up with me at once. I suddenly felt very tired, very lonely, and very far from home. At that moment, I desperately wanted to just revert back to the comfort of familiarity. I wanted to go home so badly. But this is my home now. Good god, what have I done!??
I decided to set the gauge cluster back down, and walk away. I sat down on the settee, ate some cookies, and spent an hour on the phone with a good friend. I really just needed someone to tell me that it’s all going to be okay, that I wasn’t crazy, and to forget about boat stuff for a little while.
I’m very relieved to say that after a really good night’s sleep, and no travel or anything at all planned for today, I feel about 97% better. Dad and I puttered around with a few projects, got the mast back up, and did some troubleshooting with shower plumbing. Jimmy the service guy stopped down, and after about 30 seconds had replaced the fuse that brought my instruments back to life, free of charge.
The sun is out, I got a few wins today, and I’m feeling a little closer to home again.
