When I was eight years old and my brothers were 11 and 12, respectively, my family packed our belongings into a 45 foot sailboat and got ready to sail around the world. For five years we lived an almost completely nomadic lifestyle. Christmases around a two foot tall plastic tree, surrounded on all sides by crystal clear water and white sand beaches. Birthdays in the middle of the ocean, complete with improvised birthday cakes (pudding cups with candles stuck through the lids). Enough collective vomit between my brothers and I to fill an average-sized bathtub.
Frequently asked questions: what did you eat? Rice. Pirates in Somalia? Yes. Favorite place? Greece. Least favorite place? Florida.
I was old enough to remember every place we went, but the most vivid memories I have were of the boat itself. Waking up early in the morning and looking out onto an ocean as smooth and reflective as glass, golden in the emergent sunlight. Curled up seasick in my shoe box bedroom (and by bedroom I mean bunk, and by bunk I mean a bed carved into the hull). Falling asleep to the soft sound of the waves lapping against the side of the boat, separated from my head by only three inches of fiberglass. Those memories still surface in response to certain smells and sounds; even five years later, even now. I can’t even begin to describe how grateful I am for them.
There were downsides. Of course there were downsides. I cried and cried the day we left home, when I had to say goodbye to my best friends for the first time. There were long weeks at sea when we ate nothing but rice and the odd fish we came across. On the border of Egypt and Sudan, I almost got sold (I mean, not almost—I’m 95 percent sure my parents weren’t planning on going through with it. For 30 goats, maybe, but not a measly 25).
But I learned so much. I was self-taught, for one, home schooled, so self-motivation became a huge thing for me. I can kill a fish (humanely) in five seconds flat. I learned to draw and paint and learn languages quickly. I learned to love books. Sports, maybe not—I continue to have the motor coordination of a three-year-old—but I think I can blame genetics for that one.
I’ve had people ask me if I realized, at the time, that my life wasn’t normal. Of course it wasn’t. Nothing about the human experience is normal. There’s a grapefruit-sized organ in our skulls that produces joy and pain and grief and love, and there are billions of memories wired into our synapses, and there is no way to standardize these things. Growing up in a white house in the suburbs isn’t any more normal than growing up on a sailboat.
That being said, boats: 10/10 would recommend.
