Shifting Seasons: My Outlook on Time
October is both a fall and spring for me this year. How is that so? Well, it is the end of summer’s busy season in Wrightsville Beach, and the beginning of high season in the Caribbean, where I’ll be sailing Bella to in just a few weeks. I’m both slowing down and gearing up. It’s quite confusing.
The change of seasons in WB always seems to sneak up on me suddenly. The weather here is so hard to read. The cold days do come more frequently in October, but they are disguised by a sprinkling of summer-like days! With this shift in season, much of the structure of my days and weeks has been lost, yet somehow I feel like I have even more to do.
Time has always been an interesting subject to me. Historically (and also not so historically), I tend to jam pack my 24-hours with as much as humanly possible. This tendency is not the healthiest way to live, but it has taught me a lot about time management. When I have a busy schedule, I accomplish more in less time - I am efficient and productive. When I am presented with a schedule-less day, my mind blanks and my productivity drops. This uncomfortability with free time has led me to uphold a busy life for pretty much all 22 years that I’ve lived. However; in this past year, I’ve made conscious efforts to slow down a bit, recognizing the unsustainable nature of this lifestyle.
The beautiful glowing marsh at sunset.
Spending summers in WB and working in tourism, slowing down is not such a realistic goal. I genuinely enjoy my 12-hour work days, jumping from boat to boat and squeezing in projects in between. The fast pace of life is somehow energizing and tiring at the same time. It leaves me feeling accomplished and fulfilled.
I figured fall would be a natural slow-down for me this year. That was not the case. Although this is my first fall with no school to go back to, the start of UNCW classes was still very much relevant to me. This year, UNCW is offering Physics of Sailing and a PE sailing class, both of which I am directing/instructing! It’s been a lot of work to manage nearly 50 students between both courses and keep track of their learning for 10 weeks. September came and went like it was nothing. It seemed to be a similar story for many of my friends. Work, sleep, work, sleep. And so, October was a rude awakening to the fact that I am only in town for another month and need to make the most of my time here.
I made it a priority to spend time with friends and do things I enjoy outside of work. It is a delicate balance, considering I am simultaneously trying to prepare Bella for our passage south and winter in the islands. This experience of being trusted with a boat to sail offshore and a business to start up in a new place has been overwhelming, to say the least. But a good overwhelming - I am so excited for this adventure that it’s hard to stop working. My mind is constantly juggling ideas for different charters, to-do lists for boat projects and business tasks…and I struggle to hit pause. At the same time, however, I am exceedingly aware of my fleeting time with friends this month.
Wilmington is a very dynamic community. There is no knowing what the social landscape will look like when I return in six months. That sounds dramatic, I know, but it’s true. We are all at a phase of life that involves a lot of growth and change. Graduating, finding “real” jobs, moving around, going to grad school, traveling, growing roots in a community, and all the while trying to maintain what might end up being the most number of close friendships we’ll ever have in one place. It’s a lot to keep up with because it is always evolving.
I have been feeling preemptively nostalgic about this era of life in Wilmington. Everything I do brings to mind memories of the past few years - camping, coffee at Sunday’s, cooking dinner in the Oakcrest kitchen, woods walks, sunset sails, biking the cross-city trail… Once again, I’m sounding dramatic and sappy, but I can’t seem to help it! It’s not that I don’t want to leave - I’ve been saying I’m ready to get out of Wilmington for quite some time now. It’s more the uncertainty of change in the next six months. It’s all very bittersweet.
Bike rides now start and end at the dock!
And thus, I’ve made October the month of conscious action. I’m trying not to fight the movement of time, but rather sink into it. Every day is taken at its own pace. I am still moving through my to-do lists efficiently, all the while being mindful to take time for myself and friends. It is a great big lesson in navigating unstructured days. The lack of regular charters has made my schedule much less of a schedule and more of a checklist.
My days recently have looked a lot like this: I wake up, write out my day’s goals while munching on some granola, move my body (walk, run, bike, do yoga or workout), let the [COLD!] fall morning warm up while catching up on emails/etc., start working on whatever projects I picked for the day, then leave the island to make dinner with friends or go do something fun. It’s been a nice and very non-routinely routine.
Time will keep moving whether I want it to or not. I’ve learned that if I no longer grasp to control time, I actually seem to have more of it! Especially in these last few weeks that I’m in town before setting sail in November, it’s so much better to just enjoy it. That is somewhat of a new skill for me, but I’m practicing.
