At least I was able to hold onto my ability to work. I’m so thankful for that. So many of my friends have had to give it up and take a shoreside job. I’m sure some mariners look forward to the day they’ll swallow the anchor and take a job ashore, but none of the people I know were ready for that. They put in a hell of a lot of time and effort to get the jobs they had and then all of a sudden, the rug was pulled out from under them.

It’s better for the engineers and even the stewards’ department people. There are always plenty of jobs for them on the beach. It’s not the same for deck department people. Who needs a boat driver on land? Most ‘deckies’ have had to start over again in a totally different career (if they can find one).

I have to say it sucks to go from being master of a huge ship with hundreds of people working under your authority, to working at Walmart. I applied to places like that. They never even called me back. I guess they knew I would never stick around.

I have a friend on the beach. She’s also been struggling to find work. She’s a safety professional and should be able to find plenty of work in all the plants we have around where we live. For whatever reason, she hasn’t been able to find work either. We get together occasionally and commiserate.

She tells me I should just suck it up and take a job in one of the plants. I did try a couple of times. There are just some things I absolutely refuse to do and they require people to do one of those things to work in the plants, so that option is out of my consideration.

After that conversation, I decided I would rather starve than take one of those jobs. I will ‘retire’ and just live off my rents for the rest of my life. I’ve got most of my properties fixed up enough now where they’re actually earning me a little bit of profit at this point. I can survive off it.

Of course, I can’t do the things I like to do most- travel- on the money I earn from rentals. That’s a huge depressing thought- that I would have to hang around Brazoria County, Texas for the rest of my life. It’s not that it’s a horrible place, but I would seriously miss the traveling I’ve been in love with all my life. 🙁