It’s real and it’s spectacular. However the expected anxieties haven’t manifested themselves. Leaving work? Nope. Home schooling? Nope…not yet. Offshore passages and my family’s safety? Kinda…can’t imagine that ever goes away. No, the things I’m anxious about are unexpected. Allow me to list some of them:

• Shedding all of the shit we’ve acquired over the last 10 years and 2 kids
• Packing the entire contents of our house in a 20’ shipping container
• Allowing someone else to live in our house
• Getting vaccinated in the USA now and managing the ridiculous border/quarantine restrictions or waiting to get vaccinated until we show up in the USA in July.
• Not overloading our boat with crap (for non sailors: an overloaded boat is a dangerous boat)
• Battery monitoring and energy management
• Sorting out two-factor authorization for our accounts when we no longer have a Canadian phone number and are moving from country to country.
• Installing our new autopilot and satellite communication system
• Tying up loose ends (prepping car for long term storage, USA health insurance, passports, dog passports, medical kit refinement, prescriptions for humans and canine)
• The known unknowns.

The list goes on and on but it’s stressing me out as I write this. I guess I’m just surprised by what’s stressing me out. I figured that it would be the big stuff along the lines of WHAT THE FUCK ARE WE DOING?!?! It’s heartening that that’s not the case, but not really surprising. I’ve been dreaming about this for over 20 years, budgeting for it for the last 10 and prepping for it for the last 5. There’s been plenty of time to consider what we’re doing and there’s no question or doubt it’s the right thing for us.

Every chance we’ve had to reconsider and back out has been met with a resounding “no way!” We’re clear eyed in our desire to do this. The plans have been made. Now it’s time to execute. So far the plans have been well thought out and it’s making things fairly smooth. If only Marie Kondo would show up and just make shit go away. 

So now it’s another 3 months of adding to the list and crossing stuff off. It’s ok, I know we’ll make it through this. The lack of sleep doesn’t help but we’re thrilled the kids are still in school, I’m done working and we can knock this stuff out together. 

There are no doubts about what we’re doing. None. But there’s plenty of anxiety and I’m happy it’s about easily managed stuff. So far.