Sea Crossing Confession

This time last year, I was sailing around Europe trying to live my best life. I was working again for a company called Yacht Week as a chef and hostess. I'd missed the season prior due to a devastating breakup with my ex-partner that I used to work with. I felt it would be an unhealthy decision to be in the same vicinity.

After a year of going through the motions of healing, I felt prepared with the inevitable challenge of seeing him again. My story starts in New York, before heading to Bali and then off to Europe to work for the summer. Around my birthday, I decided to go to work in the British Virgin Islands for a charter. Seeing all of my friends and having an epic time was my deciding factor in wanting to go back to work in Europe.

Before my ex-partner and I got together, working on the yachts was something I always wanted to do. It is a beautiful story of how our paths synchronized, and it all came together when we got to experience the yachting world as a skipper and hostess team. It also happened to be the beginning of the end to our relationship, a story for another time.

After the British Virgin Islands, back in New York, I had charters coming in for the summer in Croatia. I was extremely excited to be going back and felt mentally prepared to see my ex-partner for the first time in over a year. I had realized that the high caliber of love I felt in the relationship was never about the relationship but was always something inside of me.

Feeling confident and at the top of my game, I was ready to set out on my journey. Before doing so, one early morning in New York, I woke up to a new assignment. Low and behold, my skipper that I was assigned to the charter with happened to be my ex-partner. My first thought, "what is the universe trying to tell me?" In many ways, I felt it was a universal opportunity to see how I would respond. I'm proud of myself to this day that I didn't react. I felt calm and knew that I was in this pure state of self-love and that I had worked hard to get to over the past year.

As an independent contractor working on the yachts, we could decide whether to accept or reject assignments. In this moment of confidence, I felt ok in the decision process and proceeded to take it, knowing that I would be working with my ex-partner for a week. I honestly found it quite comical to be assigned together since the number of skippers that work for the company is in the hundreds.

A few days after accepting the assignment, I got a notice that the charter had changed. To this day, I'm not sure if my ex-partner decided to decline it or if it was the luck of the draw, but I was assigned to another skipper. I believe that it was all a universal test to see how mentally prepared I was to see him again for the first time since the breakup.

Before getting to Europe, I set an intention to make a certain amount of money to support me while living in Bali and writing my book. It was my main goal for going back to the yachts, and I felt it was a better life choice than working in a bar in NYC. Working as a yacht chef can be fun, but it can also take a toll on your well-being. It's tiring and stressful. I knew it wasn't going to be the lifestyle I would ultimately want to live, but in the meantime, it was funding me for the future I was trying to create.

Arriving in Croatia, I felt as if my life had officially come full circle, only this time I was on my own. It was only a matter of time that I would be back on the water and have the possibility of seeing my ex. Feeling a bit nervous, I decided the only thing I could do was surrender to the chance that seeing him might not go so well. I intended to be cordial, and I had hopes that we could build a friendship. I didn't know yet, that hidden deep within my subconscious mind, I thought we might rekindle our romantic relationship.

Tensions became high, anger came out, and a friendship was not exactly in the cards. In the first half of the season, we wouldn't even look at each other. One evening I was chatting with my dear friend, and he asked me, "Lauren, why did you come back?" I proceeded to tell him that it was purely to make money to sustain myself to live in Bali and write my book. As he listened, he then asked, "Do you feel that maybe part of you wanted to see if you had another opportunity to rebuild a romantic relationship with your ex?"

Lost for words and sick to my stomach, I had this uncompelling feeling that what he said might have some truth behind it. Was I looking to get back together with my ex? Could this be possible? I denied it in my mind but felt it in my heart. I didn't want to feel like I failed or been lying to myself, so I just pushed it out of my mind and went into denial.

It wasn't until I got to Greece and I did a crossing from Mykonos to the south of France that I had some downtime to be with myself. Working for the Yacht Week can be full-on, as you are on the go catering to your guests from early mornings to late at night. Having time alone is not something that happens often, and being on a boat, you're reasonably trapped.

When the opportunity came up to do a crossing and a private charter in the south of France, I quickly jumped on it. My friend from the United Kingdom was the captain of the ship, and having a change of scenery was much needed. Our mission was to get the boat from Mykonos, Greece to Antibes, France in three days for a charter with the owners of the ship.

During a crossing, our duties would consist of keeping a watch every six hours. It meant sometimes waking up at 2 am and having to be on lookout until 8 am, and catching up on sleep during your hours off. The point is to make sure that you don't crash into any other boats. We had no phone service, wifi, or distractions. Our world shrunk to just the ocean around us, which gave me plenty of time to write and think.

During my contemplation, I realized that I did come back to work in Europe because I felt that there might be a possibility that my ex and I could rekindle our past relationship. Yes, it is also true that my primary intention was to fund myself to live in Bali. Yet, there was this underlying layer attached to it. I also realized that I was punishing myself for feeling this way instead of accepting my true feelings.

During the three day journey watching countless shooting stars in the bright night sky of the milky way galaxy, seeing dolphins, whales, and beautiful sunrises, and sunsets, I went through stages of forgiveness, acceptance, and gratitude. These feelings were just feelings, and like the ocean, they flow. I concluded that my ex and I were not meant to be together, and with the final closure of this chapter, I was able to bring anew.