My Family -- I think I'll keep them

I had a tough email to write yesterday. I had to tell my beloved brother and sister-in-law that we just can't afford to go on the Big Family Vacation together in June. Part of me really, really, really needs to go sit on a beach in a bikini (no matter how bad THAT'S gonna look, I just don't care anymore if I look like Buddah-in-a-Diaper!), bask in family togetherness, celebrate my mom's 80th birthday with the whole kit-and-kaboodle of us--which was the point of all of this. It is a great idea, and my brother has been trying to make it happen for almost two years.

But the reality is, we just don't have the money. It's embarrassing, really. Talking about money with people you love is worse than talking about sex. Well, maybe not, but it's pretty far up there on the stress-o-meter.

Bill and I try to live very frugally, mostly because of the nature of his job. When he first started California Maritime Academy in 1984, people told us that the Merchant Marine gig was a dying industry. They weren't kidding. In 1984, there were about 1500 U.S.-flagged merchant ships. By the time he graduated in 1988, there were about 200 left. Today? I don't want to even know. Yet, for 20 years, he's managed to make a decent living of it. We just never know if the last job he had might turn out to really be the last job he'll ever have.

Part of it is our choice, though. We made a commitment a long time ago that time together was worth as much to us as the money. Bill tries very hard to be away for only six months out of every year. There's a safety aspect to it as well--how long can any of us maintain a working schedule of 12-16 hours per day, 7 days a week, without a break? He works in a very dangerous, very physically demanding environment; after several months of it, reactions slow, fatigue sets in, making him a danger to himself and others if he doesn't get re-charged. Whenever he comes home, I can count on him doing pretty much nothing except sleep and eat for the first two weeks. This is our life, for better or worse.

Everyone just assumes that merchant sailors make a pile of money. Back in the 1990s, there were Congressional hearings on Cargo Preference Laws televised on C-Span (I know, it sounds just gripping, doesn't it?), where Senator Charles Grasley (Iowa-R) excoriated the "Pirates of the High Seas!" for making in excess of $250,000 per year at the expense of the American taxpayer! Bill and I looked at each other on the couch in astonishment.

"Somebody owes me some big backpay," said Bill
"Ya think?" I snorted.

What Sen. Grasley neglected to tell everyone in the chamber that day was that he calculated the daily rate of a New York City Harbor Pilot (this is the level above Captain of a super-tanker), and multiplied it by 365 (or maybe 366 for a leap year, just to make his erroneous point). Nobody works that much, even Sen. Grasley, I dare say. There aren't even enough jobs in the industry for everyone to work that much--every job that exists now is done sequentially by two or three mariners a year, rotating home every three or four months.

So, the bottom line is that we do it like everyone else in America, we get by; some years, just barely, other years with a little extra. And this year, all our getting by and extra is going to the doctors and hospitals who saved my life last fall. It's just the way it is. Reality. Some days it just bites to be a grown-up.

Most of all, I do hate disappointing the family. But of course, they tried to make me feel better about it, because they are wonderful that way. Or maybe, they just re-thought the idea of me in a bikini? Nah...