So the wind has dropped from 30 to 20 knots and we shall be leaving towards Bonaire tomorrow morning. In an attempt to momentarily forget about provisioning, filling water/fuel tanks, handing tools to the captain, taking care of laundry, installing lee cloths, organizing of things onboard and all else important but less inspiring tasks that are obligatory for a longer crossing - I'm drinking home made ginger tea and flickering through some of the magazines that our friend brought with him from the States. A life of decadence, fashion and superficiality seems so distant these days, it's almost as if I have hard to remember life as it was before I became a sailor as I'm deeply rapt in current lifestyle. It's like a big part of me wasn't invented before I moved onto the sea, and thus I couldn't have been a whole person prior to sailing. Not saying my life was worse before as I've enjoyed most stages in my past until today, it's just that it all was so tremendously different. I was a human being in search for the meaning and importance in life, like so many other searching wanderers and errant ramblers, and so now when I've found that, my meaning, at least the meaning for this time of life, I often catch myself looking back grasping at moments from the past and trying to, backwards, follow the roads that've brought me to where I am today. 

I guess I'm no different from anyone else who's going or gone through a life changing process, we all have had our past and been through various bumpy roads to reach to Now. But sometimes when I think back at the previous, I realize how extraordinarily grand life is for giving us so many different opportunities. There are so many different roads to choose from, and I'm glad I've taken many chances, as my life until the very day of today, has been filled with all what I could have possibly dreamed of. Both the good and the bad experiences have been good for me, as they've guided me to the very moment where I am right now. 

With risk of sounding like an old granny, but if there's one thing I would like to say to the young women who read this blog and I know you are quite a few, it is that I really wish that you all would appreciate and evaluate the vast opportunities that might cross your path. I'm not saying that you should sail around the world or do all what I've done, but the things that you are dreaming of for yourself. It is such a beautiful and empowering feeling to be able to look back and feel proud and happy for all what your soul has been through, and to not have to regret that you didn't take those chances that you came across, but that you rather have gained a sense of calming fulfillment as you know that you impossibly couldn't have grabbed more from life. 

I personally feel positively exhausted when I think about my past, cause it's been such a rapid and happening roller coaster. And I do not think there are anything more I could have asked for in terms of experience until today. I know life is unpredictable and things do change and evolve in different ways, but I feel blessed for having experienced this sense of fulfillment, where I both am thankful and proud for the past, content and happy in the present and also tremendously excited for the future. When I say this it might sound to you that I've lived, live or even want to live a perfect life and I don't want you to misunderstand it like that. My life in the past, like for many others, has been a series of ups and downs. It is also a lot of hard work to live the physically challenging life on a boat that we currently do, and I know that I will have many more hardships to deal with in the future too. But what I guess I want to say is that despite the trials, mistakes and downsides of life that I've encountered, I have found my way of accepting and feeling thankfulness for the total of life. Plus and minus aside. It's the sum that matters in the end. And for that completeness or totality that is me and the life that I live today - past, present and future opportunities combined - I am utterly, inhumanly grateful. If I would have been given the opportunity to live my life all over again I'd say that I don't think I have the energy for another crazy round, yet I would have never wanted to live it differently.