About Dreaming, And Falling Short

My pal Turboglacier has a great post today about how he is not sailing around the world right now.

I don't have a lot to add to the particular melancholy / wisdom of his post.  But one thing I get to see pretty clearly in my job as a coach of college students is what different people we are when we are young.  My college students are different from me in some significant ways.  This is not news to anyone who has been 22.  But we forget, if we don't sit side by side with young people, the ways that we change.  My ideas about time, and my ideas about money, my willingness to compromise, my sense of what I can and can't accomplish, all of these things are very different than they once were, and different from the way my college students see the world.  I'm not sure if getting older is a gift or a loss.  Probably both.  I don't know if I see the world more clearly or less, with the accumulation of these extra 10 years of defeats and life lessons and disappointments and unexpected gifts. 

I've been thinking about my own goals, lately, and my own expectations about life.  I'm dating a man who lives 800 miles away, so I've been thinking about my attachment to this place, and to what extent it has governed me so far.  What would life be like if I left Maine?  Who would I be if I lived away from the coast?  I've been thinking about sailing, of course, and how I want to start doing some blue water passagemaking.  It's never interested me before but I'm ready, now, to learn a lot more about bigger boats, bigger seas, longer distances. 

Comments

[a]

It's never interested me before but I'm ready, now, to learn a lot more about bigger boats, bigger seas, longer distances.

What a good way to sum up everything you've got going on right now (NBT, Home Repair, Sailing, Life...)

[AdriftAtSea]

The boats don't have to be all that big to go on long bluewater passages. I'd recommend you take a look at www.sailfar.net, which is for smaller boat sailors who want to go on longer voyages.

[Jodi]

As someone who knows you/your thoughts only through this blog, it strikes me that you seem particularly connected to where you are, your community and connections there, and your passion for sailing. For those reasons, I think, it makes me a little sad to think of you moving away from all of the things that seem to make you happiest.

[Bill]

Have you ever lived outside of Portland, besides when you were at Yale? I'm curious because I sometimes wonder why you haven't branched out and tried to live outside of Maine. I was very happy when I lived there, and thought it was the best place in the world, yet I reached a point where I thought to myself, I've been here long enough, and would like a change. I was recently speaking to a friend who also left Portland for another city, and we both thought that sometimes you can get in a rut living in the same place for too long, especially the town where you grew up.

[Office Standard 2007]

I am New Here,My name is Jesse and this is my first entry here. Since I am new to forum community and

I feel I am in midst of my own learning curve. I feel sometimes, that I have to learn a lot, hope you

guys have patient on me.Thank you for sharing the post.