The Marina Job
When I was at my lowest point, I made a plan. Not to end things. To keep going in a way I could survive.
I had everything I thought I wanted, except the feeling that was supposed to come with it. I was struggling with work. Long days trying to give my attention to the sixth draft of a commercial lease.
I started having the same nightmares I'd had after my mother died. Until then, I did not remember having them as a kid, over 20 years earlier. They opened a window to my childhood that had been nailed shut and painted over.
The corporate deals were too large to cover with insurance. If I messed up, I would be destitute. And I would bring dishonor on the firm. The thought of the dishonor was much more painful.
My escape plan for when everything blew up, as it inevitably would, was to move to Florida and wash boats at a marina to get by.
I visualized myself getting up before dawn, opening the door to my tiny, dingy trailer and riding my $10 bike to work, rusty chain screeching the whole way, to spend the day crawling under boats, filthy and wet. To a bike racer, a screeching chain is like nails on a blackboard.
That was the plan. One day, I would open the door to my little trailer and see a palm tree illuminated by a streetlight. And in that moment, the universe would reveal itself to me. I wasn't sure what that meant, exactly, but I convinced myself it would make everything worth the struggle.
It took me years to understand what I was really planning.
Florida wasn't random. After my mother died, my brother and I would sometimes go stay with our grandparents there. It was the place in my childhood that felt safe. Twenty-some years later, with the old nightmares back, my mind went looking for the last safe place it knew.
And I wasn't really hoping to wash boats. I was hoping to stop being the person who couldn't afford a mistake. In the fantasy, nobody needed me to be brilliant. The work was filthy, but I would be done at the end of the day. You can see whether a hull is clean. You don't worry about the boat sinking after you did your job.
The idea that one morning the universe would open up kept me going on days when nothing else did. I didn't need it to be true. I needed it to be possible.
The escape fantasy isn't the problem. It's information. When your mind starts building an exit, it's handing you a very specific list of what you're missing. Mine said: safety. Work I could see. No one's honor resting on my shoulders. A few seconds of wonder.
None of those required a trailer in Florida. They required letting go of the version of me who believed one mistake would end everything.
If you've got your own marina, take it seriously. Not as a destination. As a map. And if all you have right now is a palm tree you can't explain, hold onto it. Sometimes that's enough to get you to morning.
If your thoughts go darker than 4 AM in a trailer, please don't sit with that alone. Call or text 988, the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, or reach out to your state's Lawyer Assistance Program. It's confidential, and it was built for us.
