Milestones

The latest news on Big Blue’s breakdown isn’t very interesting. It is still broken. Repairs are still ongoing, yet we will be stuck in the repair shop parking lot for another week – at least. I’m not going to continue ranting on about this because that horse has already gone to the glue factory. Instead, I’d like to mention a couple things that happened this past week worth mentioning.

January 5th marked our five-year anniversary. Five years ago I gathered the courage to knock on her door. Five years ago she said “yes” to a movie date that night in the desert. That started a few months of us traveling together (aka ‘dating’ in nomad language) before we joined forces in a single rig (hers for a couple years) as a proper nomadic couple. Five years is a long time to be with someone, but five years living within twenty feet of that other person 24/7/365 is very different. There has been only a few days exception that we have not been within arms reach of each other, and I still enjoy pulling her in closer.

January 3rd marked one full year since the last time I blew my back out (literally the day before our first day of sailing lessons). I can’t remember the last time I went a full year without that injury – it has been at least a decade for sure. After seriously hurting my back *seven times* in the 2017 calendar year (twice during the 5-week rebuild of the van’s interior), then twice in 2018, a full year without said injury is a milestone. Going into our first year of sailing I figured I’d be back-injured constantly. Sailing is so physical so it was easy to see injuries piling up. However all that hauling of lines, raising of sails, rowing of tenders, etc, seems to have been good for my geriatric spine. There will come a day that I get injured again, but it has been nice to go a length of time being able to tie my own shoes for a change. Only just now I realize that none of my shoes have laces anymore. They are all slip-on… ha!