the view from the boat

You don’t know us.  You see us in your offices when we come in together for an update or a check up.  What you see may be the facts but it isn’t us.

Here is a picture of where we are

This is us.  We have been in the boat for a long time and we have kept it afloat for many years longer than anyone could imagine.   We have worked out some ways to keep it afloat that look pretty weird to you.  

The other passenger has some beliefs that may be pretty dysfunctional, at the same time he knows the boat better than anyone else and I trust him to say what will work and what won’t.  He has been right more than he has been wrong.  He is still here in his boat.  He has been riding it for years and been told since he was three that it couldn’t last much longer. So seventy years later the boat has more leaks and the way he has been dealing works less and less well.  It is still his boat and he has managed to keep it afloat.  You have only seen a very small part of the voyage

You have seen more boats than we have, you even have some operating instructions that might help us.  You might even be able to shout some of the instructions to us and we might be able to make use of them.

You, none of you, are in here with us.  The problem as I see it is that no one can tell from outside the boat what conditions are in the boat, and it isn’t a standard boat and never has been.  What works for the standard boat will swamp and sink this one.  I have seen it time and again.

When you inform us that the conditions in the boat can’t be there and that they must be other than we report or have experienced, we think that you have ignored the only source of information about conditions inside the boat that you have.  How much trust do you think that we will give to your instructions when we know from experience that what you ask or tell  or order us to do will swamp the boat?  When the storm is up you are not there.

We in the boat are well aware that the water is rising, more than you in fact because we are sitting in it.  I have the ability to leave it in theory, and like any relationship it’s more complex than that.  I got in this boat for a lot of reasons including a lot of love for the other passenger and I agreed to stay until the boat sank and he went with it.

I have had many opportunities to leave.  I have considered a lot of them.  None of them fit with my sense of honor and my sense of commitment.

 You all may have your ideas about what should be done to keep this boat afloat.  You can tell me things like I am being too controlling and to back off and let him steer.  However, at three AM in the midst of yet another storm, with yet another wave swamping us both, with my partner incapacitated, You are not there and will not be there and have no interest in ever being there.

 I am there and in the night watches I am the one who makes the decisions.  That includes whether to stave in the bottom of the boat and swim away.  You can’t imagine how often I have considered that option.  If I did who would know after all?

At present I am working hard to construct a viable life vest to keep me afloat when the boat sinks.  It will sink. We both know this.  I understood that from the time I got in the boat.  I have chosen to stay with it until the natural end, whatever that is, because I have to look at myself in the morning and I want to like what I see. 
 I wouldn’t like me if I bailed at this point.

 It would be really helpful to have some of you watching from shore.   I would like to know that there was another boat nearby.   It would be useful to know if here is some help that I can trust, to be there as I strike out for shore.  Will I have shelter?  What will conditions on shore be for me?  Will there be someone there to help when I pull up on the sand?
My core beliefs tell me that there will be nothing there for me.  
I know that if I am acting from that place that's exactly what I will get.  So Here the two of us are.  
I don't need judgement about my trip in the boat, it has been a lot better than not mostly.  I just need to know that when my boat sinks with my partner there is a shore to head for and someone with a towel waiting when I hit the sand.