Rebel Anchor

It started in January. The depression. It struck me down like lightning. Sapping away the energy. The will. The need to become. While quick. It leeched the warmth out of my bones. I looked longingly at the toaster. Like. Are we friends?

Friends began dying unexpectedly. Their lives snuffed out for different reasons. People I had served with began their march towards personal destruction. There was sadness. Palpable. Real.

People close to me began to decline. Finances became a mess. Work was falling short. The world….

The World….oh man…. I am not even touching that. With a pole. A stick. Nothing. You can’t make me. I won’t. For at least now. Or ever.

But back to the destruction of 2025. Recently. The boat almost sank. It was a fluke I caught it. Long habit of continuous checks following the big splash. Check the engine. Check the batteries. Check the thru hulls… Check the waste system. Didn’t matter.

Something worked loose. A retaining pin on a transducer I was unaware of rusted out at some point. Over time the transducer pin backed out. Probably sometime during the constant upwind pounding of short sequential seas and 30 knot winds Aeras and I always seem to be in.

There I was. Yes. There I was. Still awake after 36 hours of no sleep. No food for 24 hours. Looking at my boat filled with murky dock water up to the seat cushions. Stored items floating in the mid afternoon daylight. The horror.

I started pumping. First with the high volume manual pump. Then jumped inside to hook up the new line to the electric bilge pump I had been dropping off. Then added. Pump from the marina. Emptied the boat out. Began looking. Still looking….Water was back up to my knees. I jumped out. Back to pumping. Emptied her out. Still looking.

I closed every thru hulls I had. It still took on water. I assumed a valve had failed somewhere and was bypassing a gate. As she filled up I noticed she was nose down first. It had to be something in the front of the boat. I assumed the waste system. I hit a second valve and it appeared to slow the flow. Gotcha! The exterior waste valve which was new must have failed and was being caught by the second valve. Boat saved.

I returned home. Fell dead asleep exhausted. Heart heavy. Yet slept with the abandon of someone far beyond their capacity to worry anymore.

When I returned to repair the issue and pull the boat out I rechecked the transducers. One looked like it was moving….odd….I touched it. It bobbed. Seemed more curious. Pushed down. It clicked. Then popped out again. I assumed it was warped. Took a picture. Saw a pin in the picture and realized the issue. The transducer. Buried in a forward compartment. Was my problem. Replaced the pin. Placed a new retaining pin. Slog begins.

What is the point? What is all of this madness? What is the score here? Am I losing? I must be losing. I remember an old adage from the weird world of spoon bending. There is. No. Spoon. It is a manifestation of your shared reality. There is no score. There is just what’s next. How it was handled marked the character of the individual experiencing the world at large. I wasn’t growing enough. This is growth.

Last year was a year of personal growth. Looking inward. Experiencing alone. It was lonely for the most part. But it was also rewarding. This year…There must be community. No longer the void of the vacuum. So I reached out.

People offered to help with clean up. I spoke to the families of friends who had passed. I reached out to long time friends to check on them. I looked again for the good hiding in the chaos of a world in puzzle pieces. There they were. Beacons of light in a scattered darkness.

I don’t know what else this year offers. It is just going to be what it is. But when things were at their lowest. There was growth. There was change. I look forward to this year. I look forward to new adventures. I want to share what there is to share. So here we are.

Year of growth. 2025 and beyond.

~Doomslug