The one thing our societies admire and idolize the most about youth is their appearance, what they miss, the real treasure of youth is passion, it disappears with age. The problem with being young and full of passion is that we ride the ups and downs more intensely than our boomer parents. Recently I received an emotional kick in the soul and I have been reeling trying to recover from it.
I had a friend comment that “… wow Lexi your sailing life really seems to be a life of extremes… ups and downs…” and it struck me at first as an odd way to view my life, then it occurred to me she was not wrong. Maybe this is the cruising life, when its good its great, when its bad its fuckin horrible fast. I am learning emotional regulation the hard way.
So if any of you read the last blog post you know I have taken an emotional kick that has rocked me to my core. I admit, I got swallowed up by this one. Generally in life I am a wounded puppy, abused child with lots of hurt inside, but I cope with it, I have learned to deal with it. I am good at dealing with emotional devastation. I knew that I would find a way to swim up from this latest kick, but I knew it would be hard. Eventually tears fade away.
One of my favorite places in the entire Caribbean is becoming Coco beach in Barbuda. I ran here to lick my wounds and struggle back into the light a week ago. I shrunk away from the world to hide and lick my wounds, breathe, and try to find my long lost center.
There is something about sitting on the deck of my sailboat every evening and celebrating the sunsets that is very spiritual. The lovely thing about Barbuda is that there is very little “civilization” and not so many people. You get to sit with sun and sky and water and connect your soul back with the planet.
At first this simple act caused me more tears as it was a special moment everyday that I often celebrated with my friend Peter, a moment I can never celebrate with him again. His absence in this special moment felt like a hole. This hole caused more tears and I cried again.
They say that time heals all wounds, but I think that might not be exactly true. We all know of stories of people who have been so struck down with grief that they fell and never recovered. In the book “Sailing Crazy Winds” I talked about my first encounter with the fallen who chose never to get back up again after breaking. I once knew a lady, whose husband died suddenly, who shrunk away from the world lost in her grief and never recovered. Everyone grieves loss differently and feels it at different levels.
I know myself, I know my survivors spirit will eventually rise up and fight and struggle its way back into the light, I just need to give it time and space. Look at these images of where I am, could there be anyplace more perfect to heal, to find peace again. So everyday I just enjoy the good life, I sleep (alone sadly) in my comfortable bed, I eat nice food, I go swimming when I am in the mood, I watch TV shows that I like. I do everything I can to make my outside physical life good.
The bad energy sits inside me and I am struggling not to let it out in any destructive way. It is okay to have your feelings but not always wise to act upon them like an animal. Animals react automatically, civilized people chose their responses with deliberation. I want to kick and scream and rage against the dying of the light, but I know it will only self destruct me.
Instead I sit, stare out into the space between the ocean and the sky, and I breathe deeply and with deliberation. Day after day I sit, and I breathe.
I know that my body is fine and not injured at all.
I know that my emotional center is upset but that too will fade in time.
I worry that my soul is injured and these deeper spiritual injuries are harder to fix.
My new crew Brendan is a very spiritual guy and has been remarkably understanding throughout all of this process. Mostly he sits alone everyday on the back bench of the cockpit behind the helm and he just stares into space. He is definitely not a needy guy, he is a quiet guy.
Every evening I bring my little BOSS bluetooth speaker up on deck and and play DJ as Brendan joins me for the sunset. I play music that I love, music that helps me to express what I am feeling, I crank it up and sit silently letting my feelings flow thru me, letting my thoughts wash over me. It is a process of trying to get thru it all to the end.
Thru all of this I just keep breathing and staring into that tiny space between heaven and earth, on the distant horizon.
Day after day I sit and stare and breathe. Day after day I find my emotions calming down and find a healing place to be. All things considered I am fortunate to be able to find such a lovely place to try and heal, fortunate to have the free time to try and heal.
I do have a tattoo on the inside of my right arm. Years ago when I was just 21 years old I had such a deep epiphany it changed me forever. The scroll of ancient knowledge is written for me to read throughout my life and to remember what I found.
BEING
IS
NOW
To just be in the moment, to step out of my head, to release the future worry and past hurts and look around at the moment, to exist in the moment and connect to it.
In my youth as I was going thru university I was on a deep spiritual quest to find “truth“. The more philosophy courses I took in pursuit of this goal the more I got confused and lost in the struggle for clarity. I read and read and studied and learned and learned for years writing on my clay with deliberation and purpose to try and figure this whole thing out. The more I learned the more I got lost. I do not intend to bore you with complex stuff way over your head but once you find the deconstructionism movement in academia of the 1970’s and move along to Neurobiology, things get complicated fast when trying to find a “truth” to stand on that is so firm it cannot be deconstructed.
Rene Descartes came up with “I think therefore I am” as he sought to find the foundation upon which to build everything else, all other truths have to stem from an unshakable foundation.
I found acceptance in the cosmological act of existence in the only moment of time we can influence, the present, in the only place we can be, here.
I understood everything else was just shit we make up
to function
and feel better about ourselves
Truth is long dead for me… so I do not take other peoples vehement proclamations of their truth too seriously.
But the fact I live with is… my friend is dead… I hate it… I hurt about it… and I feel frustrated sad and alone… I see no hope for the future.
I know the genesis of this is in my head. I know I have to reframe my illusions, easier said than done though.
To get past it I have to get out of my head… and into the present moment… until my soul reconnects with the universe.
So every evening I sit on deck and connect with the spiritual act of God’s creation. To get lost outside my own head and illusion making mechanisms and just exist in this single perfect moment in space and time. How could anybody sit on deck watching sunsets as beautiful as this and not feel touched by them? I get that the world of men sucks shit right now but God’s creation does not suck at all. The beauty remains there for me to find joy in again.
Slowly as I lose myself to these repeated beautiful moments connected back with the universe I can feel my soul beginning to return. I can feel the hurt and pain fading away. Slowly each day I am getting better, each day healing. I have not yet cried once today, so perhaps most of the emotional storm has passed and I have done well sitting still.
Last night as we sat up on deck celebrating the sunset together I decided to play my “oldies” music from the 1980’s for my crew Brendan, I thought he would enjoy that. I even let him connect to the speaker and play DJ a little bit with songs he likes. “… that was bloody marvelous…” he says in his typical English style.
It has now been a week just sitting here in Barbuda in a perfect tropical paradise and I am feeling better now. I have not had any nightmares for the last two nights and have now had two actual good full nights sleep in the last 15 days. Brendan has been absolutely wonderful about allowing me this time to heal. He says no worries at all because for him, life doesn’t get any better than this.
Maybe I will be ready to go sailing again soon…. maybe I will be ready to face other people and socialize again soon. I might be ready to have normal human conversations without bursting into tears. My spiritual center is returning and that is a good place to try and start looking to the future again.
Fix yourself…. then face the world…
I have reconnected my soul with God thru the act of his divine creation. Now to reconnect with God’s other children. I already know the meaning of life is not money or stuff, it is in our connection to, and relationships with other people. I have few close relationships left but that does not mean that I cannot build new connections to new people.
Slowly the holy spirit fills me again and I find my angel center of love and kindness again.
Cheers sailors…
maybe next time I will have some sailing stories for you…
🙂
Captain Lexi…
….. the calm again …..