Saturday, April 27, 2013

Our New "Normal"


I've heard that a fish will not grow larger than the tank in which it lives.  Whether or not this is true, I do not know… but with the few pounds I've recently gained… I hope it is true!

Since moving aboard more than five months ago, we have spent most our time within the confines of our diminutive world.  Yes I go to work in the real world, but that is another life.  My mind had already made peace with that.  But last weekend, we made what may be our last trip to the Texas Hill country to attend the wedding of our dear friend's daughter. 

Bruce and I are frequent travelers but since we've committed to cruising, we have cut out any frivolous travel.  This trip to the Hill County to stay in a hotel was a treat!  We have cut out all such things while channeling all of our income to only boat related expenditures.  This was our last travel commitment.  We almost decided against it, but since we had attended the other daughter's wedding, we knew we couldn't miss this…

We checked in to our modest hotel, the La Quinta on I 10 near Boerne.  We walked through the newly remodeled corridors and found our room to be above average for such a reasonably priced facility.  We had a king sized bed.  I sprawled out on it with giddy excitement. It was completely stationary! I walked into the huge (by recent standards) bathroom and luxuriated in the big sink with it's bubbling fount of fresh clean water.  As I brushed my teeth, it felt strange that the sink was so large.  

Back in the room, Bruce was already surfing the channels on the TV.  It's been months since we've had cable TV.  The unlimited channels left us giddy.  We settled upon the first movie that we came across… Hairspray!  I hadn't seen it yet.  So I stretched out on the huge non-moving bed and watched this movie without the sound of waves lapping against the hull….

How had we come to be such… I don't know the word for it.  This place that was once normal to us, has now become so grandiose.  Such luxury.  Such overkill.  It was very strange for us to be in this place.  

The wedding was great.  The night in a huge nonmoving bed was great.  But when we finally got home, to the boat, I can't describe my joy to be back to our world.  The unbridled pleasure of being back where we want to be was just so "right".  This boat, this life…. is our new "normal".  sigh...

1 comment:

  1. I could not resist commenting. Perfectly written!

    ReplyDelete