Chapter 28: When Your Parents Lose Their Minds

Special from Nick Stephens:

What do you do when your notoriously risk-averse parents decide to sell all their belongings and go live on a boat indefinitely?

I mean, I don’t want to speak for everyone. I’m sure this is a suuuuuper common occurrence. But for me, the ideal reaction is a multi-step process:

1. You wish their midlife crisis was, I don’t know, just a little bit cooler. Like, you could’ve bought a timeshare on the beach! A real electric car to replace the constant flow of Priuses in the garage! Could’ve moved abroad to a country with more public transportation and less inequality!
2. You realize they’re just hyper-aware of global warming, and they’re preparing for a future where everything is underwater. After all, their sailing timeline is a maximum of ten years, and the way these sea levels are rising, they might not have an office or hospital aboveground to go back to. 4D chess move right there.
3. You become entirely convinced that they’ve been possessed by demons. Or aliens. Like maybe that weird one living inside the dude from the first Men in Black movie, the one that really wanted sugar water? At this point, I think it’s the only plausible explanation. Dad does love sweets.

To be honest, though, a lot of those steps were just pure disbelief. In fact, this whole thing might be partially my fault for baiting them, because I think the conversations we had went something like this:

• Mom & Dad: We’re taking a weeklong sailing class out in Seattle.
• Me: One week straight living on a boat? Yeah, I’m sure this will go great, since you’re both such big fans of camping.

• Mom & Dad: We’re buying a boat.
• Me: Mm hmm. Because if it’s one thing everyone knows about you two, it’s that you love expensive impulse buys.

• Mom & Dad: We’re quitting our jobs.
• Me: Okay, you proved me wrong with the boat stuff, but this one is a bridge too far. Just take the boat out on the weekends like everyone else.

• Mom & Dad: We’re selling the house.
• Me: Right, and mom is just going to get rid of all of her stuff? LOL

Like I said, my bad. The good news is that, while denial lasted quite a while (until well after the boat was bought, in fact), I was able to skip the middle three stages of grief and go straight to acceptance. Well, to be fair, there may have been a bit of bargaining – please don’t cross the ocean…

Eventually, though, I accepted that this was happening, and that’s when I started to get excited. And yes, it’s very cool that they have a boat now, and it’s massive, and newly remodeled, and I can go visit (well, until they read this blog post), but that’s not why I’m so hyped for them. I’m excited because this whole process is just wildly out of character, and maybe that’s a good thing.

All of you reading this probably know my parents pretty well, which means you know there may not be two more plan-oriented, anti-risk, “think of the future” type people on the planet. I mean, the craziest thing my dad has ever done is, what, leaving his high-paying job in the medical field to go to another, slightly less high-paying job in the medical field so he could be his own boss? Don’t go crazy now, cowboy.

And you want to know who hates risks even more? MY MOM. “Text me when you leave!” “Call me when you get there!” “Don’t make a 10-hour drive through a torrential snowstorm in the midwest in January, you’ll crash!” Okay, she may have had a point with the last one. Still, I’m surprised she hasn’t gotten a “be careful” neck tattoo, to be honest.

Trust me, they stick to their plan as parents too – I lived through the strict curfew and numerous groundings to prove it. Downloaded the clean version of some explicit rap songs to your iPod? GROUNDED. Got a B+ on your latest physics exam? GROUNDED. Home five minutes after your curfew from a school-related function? GROUNDED. I think I was grounded more than Southwest Airlines during holiday season.

Much to our parents’ relief, though, Kat and I are well past the grounding age, so they no longer have to worry about that. Mom and dad put their all into raising us, and now it’s their opportunity to do what they want to do. What better way to take advantage of that freedom than to sail to new places and experience new cultures? They both have their health, assuming dad can stop grinding his fingers off, and despite my complete disbelief, both seem to truly love sailing. If there were ever a time for them to strike out on a new adventure, this is it.

They’ve even gotten the family involved where they can, which has been awesome. Kat and I have both been sailing with them on multiple occasions, as have other family members, and we’re excited to finally see Meraviglia in person – I’m hoping to head down later this month once I’m back in the country. Speaking of Meraviglia, many of you have likely read that it’s Italian in origin, a thoughtful nod to our family’s ancestry. They even got friends involved; shoutout to my boy Chris for his amazing work on the logo!

So while it’s fair to wonder how I would feel about this whole thing, I hope mom and dad live their best, most spontaneous lives aboard Meraviglia and get to experience things they never dreamt would be possible. Two points of emphasis there, the first on “live”: I very much prefer them alive, so they better be careful. And the second on “spontaneous”: I remember asking where we’d be meeting up for the holidays this year and getting an answer that was the equivalent of “meh.” We’ll have to figure that one out, but otherwise, spontaneity is absolutely encouraged.

I can’t guarantee I’ll be visiting for too long at one time, because believe it or not, the idea of showering on a boat doesn’t fill me with joy. Have any of you ever seen a runner being paced by a biker who’s riding next to them? That’s going to be me, driving my car comfortably along the coast from hotel to hotel while they eat canned tuna and sleep in the water. But all roasts aside, I’ve never been more excited about what the future holds for my parents, and no one deserves it more.