My crew left on Christmas day and I am alone again on WildChild. Like a mother hen I have been busy cleaning up my home and trying not to let the fear overwhelm me, staying busy is my tonic. This is going to be a more philosophical blog today so those of you not prone to deep thoughts or interest in human nature should probably skip this one.
Recent Events
If you remember last blog I talked about Alex’s desire to come back to Antigua and his impatient urging me forward. Sometimes I am slow to figure out when people are manipulating me and deceiving me. When the anchor got stuck that morning and I said maybe we will just have to cancel the sail and wait a few days Alex became anxious and insistent we had to go back today. I thought it was weird, what difference did it make, Coco beach was paradise and perfect, what’s the rush to leave.
It was Sunday Dec 20th when Alex informed me of his desire to leave WildChild and go home, he missed his girlfriend he told me and he wanted to go home. He said though that he would honor our agreement and was giving me at least two weeks notice to find new crew and he would help me get WildChild back to a safe harbour. He told me then he was giving me at least 3 weeks notice and was not leaving until mid January. Don’t worry Lexi I will not leave you in a lurch.
We made the sail back to Falmouth (which is where Alex insisted he wanted to go) on Tuesday Dec 22nd. Alex was all talk about how he really wants to be around people for Christmas and he wants to find and enjoy cruiser activities over the holidays. Okay… whatever… sure.
The next morning after we arrive Alex is busy very early in the morning texting with someone and has an appointment onshore he urgently wants to get to but he doesn’t tell me. Instead he tells me he really wants to go find wifi and call his girlfriend and friends back home, he was texting with them and arranging a time to call them. He needed to be onshore at 10am (our time). I was still very sick with food poisoning and getting the dinghy up off the front deck was going to be hard and require two people, I just wanted to stay in bed, Alex needed to go to shore right away.
The weird thing that took me time to figure out was…. if he was texting his friends back home that morning at 8am our time… in British Columbia Canada it would be minus 5 hours…. it meant he was texting his friends to arrange this phone call at 3am their time… and they could only talk to him at 5am their time. This doesn’t sound right but I was still very sick and not thinking clearly yet.
Alex gets upset when the dinghy is not in the water by 10am and asks to use my wifi again to text someone. I do not realize he has an appointment for his plans with someone onshore he is hiding from me, he is allowed to be sneaky. We get the dinghy launched and begin getting my young crew to shore as he seems to so desperately need. I am so sick and so weak I am afraid that if something happened and I fell out of the dinghy I would not have the energy to swim so I was wearing a lifejacket for the ride. The winds were howling strong and it was white capping in the bay as we make our way to drop Alex off onshore as he is so insistent he must go. I worry that I am so weak that when I get the dinghy back home to WildChild I will not have the strength to lift it or even climb back onboard, but Alex insists. He wants what he wants.
That evening I go again alone in the dinghy, wearing a lifejacket again, to shore to pick up my young deceitful crew. Later in the evening (Wednesday Dec 23rd) Alex approaches me carefully and softly as I am laying in my bunk exhausted and unable to move. He tells me a wonderful story about how just by rare and random coincidence he happened to run into Adrian onshore today who is sailing Christmas day over to St. Martin and Adrian out of the blue asked Alex to come crew for him. Alex was now telling me he was leaving WildChild Friday Dec 25th in the morning. His previous commitment to me to keep his promise and give me a minimum of two weeks notice completely gone, something better has come along.
It took me a while to piece it together, I admit being so sick I was not clear in my mind. I smiled at Alex and told him its okay, I already knew this was going to happen. The day he told me he was going to leave he told me he was texting with Adrian. I am sure he asked Adrian to join his crew and jump ship. I am sure Alex had this plan from Monday. I am sure Alex had arranged to meet with Adrian and his passengers on shore that Wednesday morning in Falmouth, thus his urgency and insistence we sail here the day before, I am sure Alex has been manipulating me this whole time to get what he wants. Its what polite millenials do. Its human nature.
This was not a good fit for Alex. He thought the cruising life was all socializing and parties and feeling good. The reality is… it is quite boring… very peaceful… but boring.
So Christmas morning (yesterday for me now) I drop my crew off onshore as he wants and he goes off to enjoy his next adventure. This leaves me alone again on WildChild and with much quiet time to think about the nature of my reality.
Human Nature
If you have really been following along and read my books, you will know I am currently very lost in my life. I have lost my identity and my sense of self. Who is Lexi…? I have no idea…. but… I remember things that used to be Lexi before all this sailing stuff entered my life. If you have been following along you know that I have gotten lost in pluralistic relativism.
Remember last blog, the fish story. I showed you the raw video. I told you my version of those events. I told you a little bit about Alex’s version of those events that he shared with me. He saw the exact same reality very differently than I did… and he is not wrong, neither am I. Reality is an illusion our brains invent, a story the human mind is constantly weaving meaning into patterns of the non-sensical A-priori stimuli it actually receives from the external world. It is all shit we make up to feel better about our worlds and ourselves. We always must be the good guy in our own narratives.
What has gotten me lost, is seeing myself thru so many different eyes, thru so many different perspectives. When you live on a boat with another human being it is a very close connection, a very close way to live. You cannot keep control of your own world at all, there is another world being invented in the exact same space 24/7 and it will be different than yours. To live together you must be respectful of the other persons illusion of reality and not attack or endanger it. Where it gets hard is where their illusion of reality casts you into a role you are expected to fill. You becometh a foreground character in someone else’s illusion of reality. They will see you from their own perspective and if you do not fit what they need you to be, they will begin fixing you to fit the role they need you in. (Alex did this constantly and had a hard time not doing this)
This is where my head begins spinning too. 8 billion people on the planet and 8 billion different versions of reality, this shit gets complicated fast. Each person is sure their version of reality is correct and therefore by extension everyone else who differs or challenges this must be wrong, thus the source of all human conflict.
Living together on a boat is like suddenly marrying a stranger. Your worlds are immediately and intimately in every private space squished together. So how do you exist as yourself AND also be at the person your crew sees you as? This is where I get lost.
The Role of Captain
So who is Lexi…? I have no idea because so many other people have lived with me and seen in me and of me so much stuff they have projected onto me that I cannot answer anymore. I know that before sailing Lexi was a very soft girl, very tender gentle and caring, very patient and kind and full of love. She was social and friendly and loved life. Lexi used to be a very soft girl full of empathy for everyone, I wanted to hug everyone and just make them safe. I was ruled by compassion and wisdom and I tried very hard to step lightly thru life. Although born with a very dominant and powerful spirit I have tried to keep it down and not cast too many ripples across the pond of life.
I know that when I left on this adventure with my dear sweet boyfriend I was very clear in myself with a few things. I do not want to be the captain, ever..! The stress of being the Captain will not work well for me. My worrier nature and fearful approach to trying to avoid bad shit from landing on me will not work well for me. I’d rather just be the first mate, typical boat wife, passenger protected by her man. Let him endure all the stress and responsibility of being the Captain. I want to be protected by my man.
I know I am completely stupid about dealing with government bullshit and I never want to have to check into or out of a country, never even see the paperwork. I know that I am extremely NOT politically correct with my words and I know that my extremely open genuine and honest nature will not go well with government officials. Telling them their forms are asking stupid questions is not helpful.
I know FOR SURE… 100%…. that I am terrified to be alone on the boat in the ocean and FOR SURE 100% … no 1000% no 1,000,000% that I will never ever want to be a solo sailing Captain on her own yacht on the nasty ocean. No way… that is waaaay too scary and stressful for my soft gentle nature.
If you read book two (Sailing Crazy winds) you will know how that turned out badly.
If you have been following along you will know that my biggest lesson from my life on the ocean is…. NOTHING EVER GOES ACCORDING TO PLAN…. !
The evil monkey needed me to be his ex-wife / victim sparring partner
The dragon needed me to be her aggressor so she could play victim / and she needed to hurt me.
Mr. Kol needed me to be his Captain, his teacher
Alex needed me to be his Captain, his cheerleader his moral booster
The next crew will need me to be….? Hmmm…..
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There does seem to be a bit of a pattern developing here huh…
I need to accept my reality, step into the role fully. What I want is irrelevant. My reality is… I already am a solo sailor girl Captain on the ocean. I am and have been for a long time responsible for everything. I have nobody to protect me I am the tip of the spear. All authority and responsibility begins and ends with me.
I had created the character of Captain Lexi a while ago for my public persona. For this website and for the YouTube videos and the public parts of me I present only the limited part of my life as a female sailing captain. Sometimes I refer to this character in the third person and it drives some people nuts, but I do not feel like I am this character, it is not actually me… just a role I play for you. As though this girl Captain Lexi… is a coat I only wear for limited public performances.
But… maybe my reality is… I am a solo sailor captain alone on the ocean. Maybe it is not a coat I am wearing for show, maybe it is who I am becoming. Maybe rather than fight the role I should embrace it. I am still resisting the role because I still fear it, dread it. I still do not agree to it. I am still terrified of it.
What ever Alex’s time onboard WildChild was, he was helpful to me. It took me some time the other night to get him to be open honest and direct with me but slowly he showed me. I asked him to explain to me how he sees me. Who does he think Captain Lexi is. Being genuine open and honest is a foreign concept for most Canadians, we are so carefully raised to be ever so perfectly PC with our words. It was hard for Alex and he got uncomfortable with my direct and gentle continuous prodding but he did eventually show me useful things.
Where I failed him, and I have heard this from previous crew, is that he needed me to inspire him with confidence that everything is going to be okay. He needed me to be his shield from the horrible possible realities and he needed me to protect him from the bad thoughts, from his own fears. He needed constant reassurance that everything is fine and everything is going to turn out wonderful. He needed me to be the optimistic cheerleader making him feel better, the source of hope. He told me I am an amazing technical captain, amazing sailing teacher and that I am highly competent and clearly I know my boat well. He was trying to explain though… that I failed as the leader.
Wait… when did I become the leader? When did that get expected of me…?
Previous crew have told me that my worrying is very difficult for them to deal with. They say Lexi you worry too much about things that can go wrong, we need to hear from you that nothing can or will go wrong so we can feel safe. Lexi when you give voice to your uncertainty we cannot handle it, we need you to sound and be and act confident all the time. We need to feel like we are totally safe and everything is fine so we can follow you. Lexi you have a lot of authority over us as crew and we need to feel inspired by you. We need to find our own feeling of safety by looking to you for confidence.
Ummmm…. what..? When did this happen? I don’t remember applying for this job. I don’t agree to doing this job. I do not want to fill this role. I want to be looking up to someone else to inspire me with confidence and calm my fears too… where is the Admiral?
I think maybe I have to consciously step into the role of Captain quickly.
Accept it
Stop playing at Captain and becometh the Captain my future crew will need.
This is my reality.
I need to be at one with it.
Captain Lexi
…………. the acceptor of her fate ……………