So I'm lying awake at 3 AM listening to the odd splashes, creaks, grunts, and squawks of the night, and thinking about what to blog about, inspired by the letter "F."
Friendships? I'm bemused by the fact that my parents were excellent at keeping friendships for life, while I'm good at making friends, but easy come, easy go, and I'm lousy at maintaining the friendships after our lives begin to diverge. That makes a sort of sense, though; each of us developed the skill we needed most. My parents lived almost their whole lives within about a 50-mile radius of where they were born, so maintaining friendships was important. While Dan and I counted a total of 23 moves between us, since college (after that we just stopped counting), and now live this nomadic cruiser lifestyle where people drop in and move on with startling regularity, so making new friends in new situations is important. I pondered the role of Facebook, too, in maintaining connections with friends, and it's two-edged: makes it handy to keep friends even over long distances, but at athe same time, makes it harder to just drift away after a friendship has run its course. Still, nothing profound here, and the subject of cruising friendships has been covered pretty extensively by other bloggers.
Finances? Been there, done that one too. We still live on $2500/month or less, as we detailed when we wrote about our cost of living, afloat. And we still think that sometimes less money = more outrageous adventures, as we learned from a cruiser who traded career security for adventure. Similary, we met lots of colorful characters taking the city bus, but few or none when we could afford the luxury of our own rental car.
Food? A single post is too short to explore that. I'd either have to make it a whole separate blog about recipes and food storage tips and boat-friendly cooking equipment, or not even start. And of course there are already hundreds of blogs and websites about those topics. Forty-hour workweeks, that bane of my previous existence? Yes, but what I wanted to say about that fit better under J is for Jobs. Fantasies? Yep, most cruisers head out thinking life afloat is going to be all turquoise water, white sand beaches, and rum drinks with little paper umbrellas, and quickly learn that the reality also includes that other "f" -- fixing things in exotic ports.
What the eff? Fragments of blog posts, but no inspiration. Then I realized something that really had inspired me...and it even started with "F."
Fabulous Forties, and Rising Above
I like F is for fragments. Sometimes, bits and bobs is a good way to go. Bite size chunks on various topics that are easy to digest - a very nice approach!
ReplyDeleteFunny, I almost titled this post F is for Fragments; even found a great illustration. Blogs are, after all, supposed to be more casual and informal than a regular column, yes?
ReplyDelete