morrowlife

Here’s Shannon dancing with a statue of some revolutionary American guy. She was so fun. Great Art courtesy of Scott’s old Kodak digital camera, taken by Scott during our Independence Hall tour right before we moved away from Pennsylvania the first time, and part of my famous Shannon and Statue series.

Greetings from Cabo San Lucas! I had a nice day today.

But let’s start the story from the beginning. I left home in my beloved pickup at about 8:30 Saturday morning. It was supposed to be a terrible rainy day in Los Angeles and points east, but I got about 10 drops of water on my windshield the whole way. Traffic moved quickly and the truck ran perfectly. The lines to check in at the Long Beach terminal were long, but they moved at a reasonable pace and I got on board the ship in due time.

While I was in the terminal building (the old Spruce Goose dome, incidentally), the thunderstorm finally let loose and really raged for a little while. I heard later that it got pretty hard to get around for a while there.

Anyway. My balcony cabin was already ready for me. It’s really nice and feels possibly a bit bigger than the inside cabins Shannon and I have had on all our previous cruises. Other than Disney, that is. We had Mark and Andy with us on that cruise and the cabin was plenty big for all four of us.

Anyway. I walked around the ship a while, avoiding the residual light rain. It’s a pretty standard cruise ship – not as big as others we’ve been on but still big enough. I think it carries about 2200 passengers and 900 crew. So it didn’t take too long to explore. I spent some time hanging around on my balcony, which I enjoyed very much and continue to enjoy. I’m not sure Shannon would have liked it as much as I do. She hated to feel cold and her threshold for coldness was a bit lower than mine, so she wouldn’t have wanted to be out there while we were at sea. So I wouldn’t have been there because I didn’t want to be by myself. So the balcony is a great idea for me now but might not have been so great before. I do like having the sun wake me up in the morning, though, even if I’m not outside.

All of Saturday was pretty cloudy with slightly rough seas. Nothing like what we’ve seen on a couple other cruises, but you could definitely feel the ship rolling. I was walking outside on the promenade deck Saturday night and saw my first stars, so it didn’t take us an extremely long time to get out of the rainy weather. By Sunday morning, it was beautiful out.

We spent Sunday at sea. I enjoyed the day but didn’t really do all that much. I chatted with people over meals (I had their sea day brunch early and then again at lunchtime) and enjoyed the company. Otherwise, it was pretty much just me. I wandered a little and ended up spending a lot of the day on my balcony and otherwise relaxing. I enjoyed the alone time. There was a short period of intense loneliness and missing how the trip would have been with Shannon. Sunday was the one-month anniversary of her death and I needed to grieve some more. See yesterday’s blog post.

I have a nice group of people at the dinner table. They’re all single and they all seem nice. I like them, but I’m also intensely aware when I’m with them that I’m now part of the misfit group. I’m no longer part of a couple as far as things like that are concerned, and I don’t like that feeling. But such is my new life. I will learn to adapt and I will find friends who are nice, normal people. But probably not on this cruise. Although I really do like the people I eat dinner with. Sorry to say negative things about them. But adult singles aren’t the same as couples. They just aren’t.

This morning, we arrived in Cabo. I sat on the balcony as the ship approached and anchored. The view was pretty. After a while, I got on a tender and went ashore for my scuba diving excursion. It was fun! It was also exhausting. I’m so sore this evening I feel like I can hardly move. So we were underwater just long enough, I guess. There were three of us assigned to follow a guy named Sharif – a couple and me. The guy got in the water and really struggled for a while. I guess he just couldn’t get used to the scuba equipment. After about five minutes, he surfaced and went back to the ship. His wife and I finished up the trip. There were a lot of very interesting ships, some rocks and coral, a very large eel holed up in a rock crevice, and lots and lots of sand. It was beautiful and unique and I’m really glad I did it. I was able to breathe comfortably and get around well. All in all, it was a fun trip. I’m not sure I’m interested in taking up scuba diving, though. If I could do it in Cabo all the time, I might like it. I’m not sure that other places would be as beautiful. Also, I don’t want to be this sore that often.

Spent the afternoon in my cabin and on the balcony. I watched the sun go down and the lights come up on shore. It was beautiful. The day was warm, the water was extremely comfortable in a wetsuit, and the sunset was peaceful and cathartic.

I feel almost guilty enjoying myself so soon after Shannon’s death. I know that’s what she would want me to do, though, so I’m trying. There’s plenty of mourning going on too. After dinner tonight, I walked on the promenade deck like we used to do on our cruises and just talked to her as if she was here. It was heartbreaking because she can’t talk back to me, but it also gave me a chance to vocalize so many of the things I’ve been thinking. Being widowed is hard. It is just hard. I hope I have the strength to get through it without cracking. I don’t think I have much choice, do I?

Tomorrow, we’re back in Cabo. I’m going to the beach. Must remember the sunscreen – there are a lot of red people on the ship today and I don’t want to be one of them tomorrow. I hope to be a little less sore tomorrow night than I am tonight. Wish me luck, Loyal Readers!

And I’ll end with this exciting Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity: drug store-invading duck!

See you tomorrow.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 3rd, 2014 at 11:57 pm and is filed under shannon, statue. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.