I guess I'm officially an island girl.
For about a month and a half I've been sculpting out my new life on the island of Mallorca, Spain. It hasn't been easy, although the photographs I take will tell you otherwise.
Not long after the passage from Italy to Spain on the 32m motoryacht I called home for a month of my new life and world, I quit. I'm not really at liberty to say what happened, nor should it really matter - it just wasn't where I was supposed to be.
Quitting the boat was a combination of both the toughest decision I have ever made, and yet the easiest. On the one hand, the job was perfect for me. It was permanent, with a fantastic salary and it was (is) based in Mallorca.... so I would have been close to my man who is based here too.
There were so many postives to the position but at the end of the day I had to make risky sacrifices for my overall happiness.
As much as I miss the stability of a job with an incredible salary both in summer and winter, money isn't a big thing to me. OF COURSE there's so much I want to do or buy that requires money (that mint green VW campervan....), but I had to to walk away.
In 2 months I had made more money than I had ever thought possible for me but even so the thought that at the end of June there would be no more money coming into my bank account frightened me. I tried to take a few days for myself.. catch up on my tan, finish reading my latest book, do yoga... but I couldn't relax.
I needed to find a job.
So I got to work polishing up my CV, taking a ridiculous yachtie photo to stick on the front page and refreshed the Palma Yacht Crew facebook page about a million times a day searching for jobs as a junior stewardess on the yachts. I was picky though. One thing I decided had to be compulsory was that the boat must be based here on the island. My relationship was (and is...) to new for me to be away for the entirety on Summer.
Like I said, sacrifices.
I could have found a stew job on a boat offering a great salary, I could have been off traveling the Med and perhaps even to the Caribbean, but I wanted my relationship to work more.
So, almost too conveniently, a job popped up onto the Palma Yacht Group facebook page in between my constant refreshing and it seemed that it ticked all of my boxes: based in Mallorca, family orientated with a few charters in between, a small and friendly crew and so so so relaxed to top it all off.
I think one of the main problems with my last boat was that I was thrust into the deep end way to quickly. Coming from a tiny village in South Africa where I literally didn't even know what a pair of Havinanna (did I spell that right??) flip flops were - to this grand luxury and downright crazy lifestyle.... it was overwhelmed me completely.
I snatched the calmer job up in a heartbeat and although it is sadly only seasonal which means I am going to need to make some kind of a plan to survive on the island through winter - I'm happy. The boat gave me a bicycle with a little basket on the front and a bell I can use to warn the pedestrians to get out of the way (more often than not they ignore me anyway. Bastards.)
I cycle from home in Cala Major (possibly one of the most wonderful places I have been on my many traveling adventures, to Palma, every morning and evening.
There's a special cyclists path which is such a great thing to have. It's just so different from back home in South Africa.
My jon consists of making up the bedrooms, setting the table, food and drink service, assisting the chef, window cleaning, vacuuming, dusting, laundry, stock take, waxing / rinsing / shammying the boat, cleaning the fenders, putting the fenders on and taking them off, unclipping the clip and adjusting the handbrake on the Bow, lines and MORE that has slipped my mind right now.... I am sole stew and deckhand. The experience I am gaining is so beneficial and best of all, I am loving, it.
It's SO different from my usual 9-5pm desk job.. it's a new world.
Yes it's tough. I haven't had a day off in 3 weeks and there isn't a day off on the horizon for the next few to come... it's exhausting. But it's also amazing. It's hospitality. You've got to be happy and smiley and chatty - and that makes my smile continue all the way back home to my boyfriend.
After work most nights I dash down to the beach and rip off my clothes, crashing into the atlantic ocean in nothing but a pair of bikini bottoms. After the dip I get back to the beach bar filled with a bunch of South African friends and my boyfriend passes me a gin and tonic. It is absolute BLISS.
Like I said before though, it's not as perfect as it looks or sounds.
To be very honest, my confidence has taken a ginormous knock.
I am not used to relying on others. I am so appreciative to have my boyfriend and i know without him I'd be lost right now.
I'm just used to the comfort of my job, my income, my own transport and flat. My own TIME....
A different life.
The adjustment seemed so east at first but gradually it started eating at me that I've become so reliant on others. I know soon I'll have established a bit of savings and I'll be able to rent my own car (although learning to drive on the other side of the road is going to be a whole other story!!) and afford to do things like treat my boyfriend out to dinner or buy him little presents. He's done so much for me and he is truly such a wonderful man. One of the most generous, giving and kind guys I know. I just hope he, and everyone else that has helped me through this crazy life change of mine (mid-ish life crisis?!) knows just how grateful I am.
So that's me.
The new me.
The new life I'm adapting to that is so polar-opposite to what I am used to and what I used to write about.
It's different worlds.
I'm still struggling to write.
Since my engagement ended and my heart got broken in ways I am only recently realizing and remembering (back then, I blocked it out. All of it. The pain, the suffering, the humiliation..........).
That's a big part of my confidence knock too I suppose.
I try to write - like now. But it's hard. I just can't bring myself to putting pen to paper anymore. Maybe I will one day, but for now its still too hard. My heart still has a lot of healing to do first.
"Love is like a spiders silk... it is within us, and infinite. From the spinnerets of HOPE, we can weave love again, even after the web of our heart has been SHATTERED."
