the finish line i couldn’t imagine
Three days after finishing the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race, I laid on the floor of our rental flat in Brighton, Jared on the sofa, both of us trying to decide where to spend the next month together. We had entire continents of options and no schedule pulling us toward any of them. Hours in, neither of us had said anything useful.
All we knew was we wanted somewhere to reconnect – with ourselves, and each other – with the understanding both of us had grown in very individual ways throughout our year apart.
For eleven months, life had structure I sometimes resented, yet quietly depended on. There was always another race to prep for. Another watch. Another departure already scheduled before I’d even finished the last one. Every decision had already been made by the rhythm of the race.
I’ve navigated across oceans. Made calls under pressure with a crew’s safety riding on them. And here I was, stuck, because for the first time in almost a year, nothing was deciding for me.
Like anyone doing something that consumes years of their life, I spent plenty of time imagining what it would feel like when it was over. I imagined relief. I imagined pride. I imagined hugs on the pontoon. I imagined celebration.
I expected to miss the ocean. I expected to miss my crew. I used to dream about having complete control over my time again. Then I had it, and had no idea what to do with it. What I didn’t expect was to miss the certainty.
The tears started like a tidal wave the moment the finish line came into view, before I’d even stepped ashore. I still don't have a clean explanation for that. Not relief exactly, not sadness exactly. Closer to watching something that had organized years of my life become, in the space of one finish horn, a memory instead of a plan.
Crossing the line didn't give me the sense of completion I'd been picturing for months. Instead, it gave me something far more valuable. Perspective. The kind of distance you only get once something is finally behind you rather than in front or underneath your feet.
That planning conversation with Jared ended, eventually, the way most of my hardest decisions on the boat did: not with certainty, but with picking a direction and trusting we'd adjust. We landed on Italy. Not because it was the obvious choice, but because at some point you have to stop weighing options and start living inside one of them again.
I'm still learning how to make decisions without a race schedule making them for me. But I'm learning. That, it turns out, was the actual finish line, not the one between two waypoints on the water, but the slower one of figuring out how to want things again once nobody’s telling you what’s next.
Author’s note: If you’re just joining me, this reflection continues where my previous post, finding my voice, losing my words - why I went silent while sailing around the world, left off.
