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There are many things that are not for me. Black leather bags, most blazers, living on a boat full time. I know that they are not for me because I have tried them. I am sure many of my friends predicted that I would not be well suited to a life at sea. And they were right. But I do not regret trying it out, I don’t regret committing to something different. I am sad to see the boat go, I have cried a great number of times the last few days, moving my belongings off the boat and into a temporary apartment where I can pack them and mail them back to New York, my home again.
I thought that living on a boat would be centering, that I would live an extremely healthy lifestyle and learn many new skills. I thought I would spearfish and make sushi and swim a mile every morning. As it turns out, I do not like spearfishing and I do not have the discipline to swim a mile every morning. I am much less healthy than I was when I lived in New York. I bet it all on red and, my girls, this time it was black’s turn.
What a year it has been.
In the opening of her essay about leaving New York City (“Goodbye to All That”), Joan Didion writes, “it is easy to see the beginnings of things and harder to see the ends.” (Didion, of course, moved back to NYC and lived there until her death.) When I look around now, I cannot tell if I see only endings or only beginnings. I cannot tell the difference between them.