Tuesday, July 30, 2013

May I?

Complain, I mean? Just this one time. For a little while?

I'll be okay later in the week, as the hitch draws to a close. But right now I'm in the past-the-midway-point-but-not-nearly-home part of this thing and I'm tired.

Tired of the noise. Our generators, the satellite TV (almost never off), the radio traffic, the engines of other boats reverberating through our aluminum hull, the rumble and whine of cranes on the dock, the clomp of boots on the stairs .... I crave quiet, right about now.

Tired of my deckhand. He generally does a good job, but he is s-l-o-w. For instance, it's now after 4 a.m., and he still hasn't finished his weeklies.

We're not jerks about this stuff, on this boat. The entire list of deckhand duties -- dailies and weeklies -- fits nicely on one sheet of paper. We thought carefully about what was reasonable and necessary when we put it together. We solicited input from the crew members who would actually be doing the work.

Part of the understanding is, I thought, that the deckhand would knock-out those fairly light duties at the beginning of the watch. Because you never know what might happen later; like, rain. Or a run to our drilling rig. Or ... whatever.

As a matter of fact, I hear snores from the lounge. ... Really? Nah-uh. No way. Hold on. I'll be right back.

Okay, I'm back.

I'm tired of that horrible, helpless feeling when I realize, again, that the 3-year-old's awful meltdown this morning is because he doesn't want to go to pre-school because he's afraid his mother won't be there in the evening, because really deep-down he's freaked-out that Daddy isn't home.

I struggle, all over again, with whether being out here is the right thing for me -- for my family. I love my job. I really do. I'm pretty good at it, too, and I actually can't think of anything else I want to do or even that I *could* do that would pay anything close to what this does.

But I also love my family and I love spending time with them and being a part of their lives on a daily basis.

It's a conundrum, I tell you.

Or ... maybe not, really.

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