Pushing back on diminishing boundaries

When in the middle of an extended hitch, my world tends to get smaller. I think of it as 'pulling in,' where I start to tune out the world, forget to return phone calls and generally allow my horizon to dwindle down to the confines of the vessel I'm on. I hear that guys in prison do the same thing to keep from losing their shit.

 And that's the goal: maintain. I don't want the reminders of what I'm missing. I start to catch up on my reading, my conversational skills perhaps don't get exercised so much, too... as a tugboater told me this morning "Well, you're gonna get real ugly."  And that's true too. I'll get temperamental, at times. Moody. That's just how it is. On paydays, I'll be cheerful, as the big checks start rolling in and I see a return on my investment, but that's about it.

       Today I had the morning free, and to combat ennui, I went for a 10-mile walk through Red Hook, Carroll Gardens and the Fulton Mall area of Brooklyn. Beautiful day for the walk, too. At first it was a grind. I had no patience for all the damn people. I was expecting to be a little more alone on Sunday, but it wasn't to be. After the first few miles, I perked up, and started to look around. I got some decent news when I stepped on the scale this morning- I'm about 70% of the way to my goal, as far as my ideal weight, from where I started, and the few nice clothes I have here that actually fit are pretty comfortable for this time of year. So that helped keep me of good cheer and also from eating anything I shouldn't on my walk.

 At any rate, a 3 hour walk did me a lot of good, as a way to try to keep my horizons from shrinking down too much. There's a larger world out there, and, as much as I don't really care for New York, it's an interesting place to visit. Shame I can't try out the bars here, as there's plenty of them, but even when I'm off the clock, I'm on the clock.

 So later I'm going to take that walk again. This time there's a sandwich in my future. I actually MUST have 900 more calories for the day at a minimum, or risk losing muscle mass. Considering my battle with keeping a healthy weight, that's a nice problem to deal with.