3/3/25- Someday this will be absolutely hilarious.

It’s 3:31pm on Monday.

Someday what I am about to tell you will be one of the funniest things ever. Truly. But…I haven’t hit the laughing point yet. That said, YOU have my full blessing to laugh now. However, do NOT let me see you. I’m not ready.

I don’t know exactly how it happened yesterday. At first I was still in “okay…we can handle this, we got this” mode, but as the day went on, my mood plummeted and truthfully I’m still there. Is it the end of the world? Of course not. Is it another papercut? Yes. Feels like an infected papercut. If I didn’t think that young eyes might read this entry or if I hadn’t restrained myself from writing this last night or this morning, this post would have simply been an all-caps expletive-laden “never buy a boat” rant. (Lauren and Jake…you’ve been warned.) Here it goes….

It was Sunday. I had gone to church with Addie and was feeling pretty good, all things considered. The day before we borrowed a car from our friends and drove to Myrtle Beach and were mostly able to have a good time. Steve and I had received the estimate for the non-engine boat repairs earlier that morning (oy….!) and I think that was definitely running in the background for us as we went through the Ripley’s Believe it or Not museums, but we were determined to have a good day.

Face Swapping exhibit at Ripley’s Believe it or Not Illusions Lab on Saturday.

I was happily doing laundry (as happily as anyone does laundry), feeling good that we were going to have clean (!) clothes! Yes! Since we thought we were going to have—at most—three weeks of cold weather, we didn’t pack a lot of winter clothes. In fact, other than my winter coat, I only packed old winter clothes that would layer well while we were on passage and then could be donated/thrown away. For example, my leggings with holes in them? Perfect! They will go nicely under many other layers. Steve’s old sweatpants that I stole years ago for lounging? Those will be fabulous as a top layer and will be brilliant just under my waterproof pants! When we were on passage (for those five minutes) I wore five layers on the bottom (I get cold super easily). Suffice to say we’ve been wearing the same very limited menu of clothes for a long, long time.

Sid and Addie helping with the original loads of laundry (while, you know, Steve worked on boat projects).

I came back from doing the laundry yesterday finally (!) ready to relax and have some fun with my family when Steve casually mentioned that he found a moldy shirt in his closet. Oh. Hmmm. We’ve had the heaters on in the boat a lot because it’s been so cold. As a result, there has been a lot of condensation—especially in the mornings. We have noticed the moisture on our walls, ceilings, etc. We have also noticed it a bit in our closets but didn’t think too much of it. A few things have been damp, but that’s all part of living on a boat, right?

I pulled out the shirt that Steve was talking about. It was one of my favorite “Steve” shirts—his white henley. It had a bright pink mold splotch right in the middle of the shirt on both sides. Ugggggghhhh! And I JUST finished all of the laundry! And I was out of quarters…. And maybe it was ruined… (spoiler alert: it was). He had a big pile of clothes that he had taken out of his closet sitting in the middle of our floor that he was going to go through (after he took a look at the outboard engine…and before you ask, yes…it’s broken and yes, we need a new outboard engine). “Those clothes are a bit damp but I think they’re okay,” he said reassuringly.

Well friends, let’s just say that last night every one of us pulled out all of our clothes from all of the places we had stuffed clothes and went through every single piece.

Every.

Single.

Piece.

Every sock. Every shirt. Every piece of underwear. Every @#$!-ing scrap of fabric or porous material that can hold moisture in this God-forsaken hunk of fiberglass was carefully studied: “Is it wet? Or is it just cold? (praying) Cold. I think it’s just col—no, no…it’s wet. (choking back rapidly rising frustration rage) Okay, it’s wet. Put it in the “wash” pile in the middle of the saloon floor (as opposed to the “put-it-back-in-your-closet-actually-no-don’t-put-it-back-in-your-closet-because-YOU-CAN’T-PUT-ANYTHING-IN-YOUR-CLOSET-BECAUSE-YOUR-CLOSET-IS-WET-BECAUSE-WE-LIVE-ON-A-!#$!-ING-BOAT-AND-EVERYTHING-IS-WET!!!!!”………..pile.)

So where do you put things (oh yeah….it wasn’t just clothes—it was books, DVDs, medicines, etc.) that should go in already-tiny closets in an already-tiny space when they are wet and you’re try to let things dry?

**pause**

No seriously, where do you put them? I actually don’t know. That wasn’t an “I have the answer and I’m testing you” kind of question. That was me actually asking that question. Because I still don’t know.

I obviously STILL don’t know because I have quarantined myself to the bedroom to spare everyone else my bad mood (although Sid just braved the space…he’s here now. Good luck, Sid.) and I am surrounded by all of our stuff. The bedroom, my lovely sanctuary, filled to the brim with hangers, random books, and all other things that definitely belong in other places but they have nowhere to go at the moment. I’m just sitting here in a tornado of stuff. Living on a boat already looks like you just moved in and haven’t put anything away. When you add in a layer of “take everything out of your closets and put it wherever you can” it adds an extra special *chef’s kiss* level of interior decoration chaos.

Ruined shirt (post-wash).

BONUS: Steve is 6’7”. This is wonderful in so many ways. One of the ways in which it is NOT wonderful is when it comes to clothes. Because it is particularly difficult to find clothes that fit, we have to take extra special care of Steve’s clothes. This means that we need to air dry ALL of his clothes. Always have. Which means that last night we had to find hangers and places to hang his very tall wet clothes after they had been through the wash.

There was stuff—wet stuff—everywhere. We couldn’t put it outside because it would freeze. Argh. I think my favorite was washing all of the swimming suits we haven’t yet used. Felt like fate was laughing at us.

So…now…it’s the next day. The emotional hangover carried over into today and everyone was still feeling it this morning. Everyone’s idiosyncrasies were on full display and served to annoy everyone else. There was yelling. There were tears. (Sid just pointed out that there are still tears). There were hard conversations and there was forgiveness. We are moving on….slowly.

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And…..

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While I’ve been sitting here with Sid, he has just shown a lot of courage and wisdom. Courage because he waded into the lion’s den (heck, I don’t even want to be around me right now). He came into my room when he could have gone into Addie’s room with Steve—they were both laughing about something. I said to Sid “you can either go over there to the Room of Joy or stay here in the Room of Sadness—which do you want?” He slowly and very empathically said, “well, I’m sad, too, so I’ll stay with you in the Room of Sadness.” And then he gave me a hug and laid down on the bed and put his arm around me to help me with this post. He pointed out that my computer is now fully charged and has a small heart in the bottom right corner of the battery icon.

Heart icon.

Neither of us know what it means but Sid pointed out that it’s probably a good sign. He also carefully asked if I had journalled and suggested that I use the real curse words in my journal. He also reminded me that “this, too, shall pass.”

So…while I want to push all of these crappy feelings away, I guess one good thing that has come of it is this random quiet, real-time moment with my favorite person (ha! I had written “son” but Sid just changed it to “person” and now we are having a typing war where he tried to change “son” to “person," etc.). This moment is an opportunity for me to remember and recognize how much he has grown in the last few months and how he has the capacity for great love and empathy and kindness (and humor).

I love you, Sid. Let’s get out of this boat and have ice creams before dinner.

PS - I had written “ice cream” but Sid changed it to “ice creams.”