The Art of Bailing Out a Sinking Ship

Almost demure in presence, as though his condition had withered his once sinewy body down into a frame that could barely contain him… or what was left of him. Tattoos stretch across his skin, stories no one can quite read anymore.

Each morning, I walk to my neighborhood store, and there he sits, on the sidewalk, dust from the street as the golf carts pass, leaving a film of grit all over his weathered skin.

The old captain.

His wheelchair like a worn armchair. Bombita in hand—a small plastic bottle of Caribbean rum. It’s not good, but it’s not expensive either. Just something to sip on and numb the senses. If it didn’t work, people wouldn’t drink it.

It comes at a cost.

They call him the General, out of respect for the life he once lived—when he captained twenty-five-foot lanchons beyond the reef, as far as Turneffe, without hesitation. A real man of the sea. From the old generation, before GPS and windfinder apps. He was revered. Sought after. The kind of man others trusted to navigate waters they didn’t understand.

Drug runs became a habit.

He didn’t know what to do with the money, so he buried it.

When he learned his wife had taken another lover, he dug it back up, hoping it might be enough to win her back.

The money had rotted.

He had nothing.

She wanted nothing from him.

So she left.

Devastated, he took what little remained and bought a bombita.

One sip—warmth taking the edge off the pain.
A second—moving through his veins.
A third—his thoughts beginning to slow.

Thoughts that had haunted him so long he could no longer remember when they began.

One bombita turned into a second.
A second into a third.

His relevancy—
his credibility—
began to rot, just like the money he buried.

It wasn’t that people forgot him entirely.

But younger—
more agile,
more willing,
more ambitious—
captains stepped forward to take the helm.

And he didn’t fight it.

He settled.

Swam to the bottom of the bottle.

Now, a shadow of the man he once was.

Once Strong. Sinewy.
Now tatted with stories no one can read anymore.

Reduced to a frame that barely holds him—
propped in a wheelchair like a worn armchair,
bombita in hand.

Passersby catch glimpses of a tragedy few could name.

Tourists turn their heads.
Locals offer a hand.

I, knowing his story, offer my heart.

The philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, argued that one must treat life as a work of art—both creator and creation—to give it meaning.

That because life holds no inherent meaning, we are responsible for shaping it with intention, with style, with authenticity.

In other words, life can be curated. Shaped. Rendered like art.

That we have—
the intention,
the authorship,
the control…

The quiet assumption that we choose the lives we live.

But no one explains what happens when your life begins to take shape around someone else’s unraveling.

We met in a moment when the tide pulled us in.

Someone I’d known long enough to understand better than most. Better, even, than those who raised him.
Strong—like a force you don’t question, only adjust to.
Intelligent. Capable.
Driven by something that didn’t dim easily.
But beneath it—something unresolved.
A weight he had learned long ago to carry quietly.

He was taught to hold it in. To keep it together.
Weakness wasn’t an option.
Emotion—something to be managed, not expressed.
But feelings don’t disappear just because they’re hidden.
They wait.

And like the General, he found a way to soothe it.

It didn’t look like a problem at first.
A bucket of beer with friends.
Then another.
Then another.

It went on like that for years—
casual, social, unremarkable.
Until it wasn’t.

Because grief doesn’t stay buried forever.
And what had once been a drink among friends
became a nightcap, alone—
numbing thoughts too dark to sit with,
too persistent to ignore.

I learned the rhythms of it.
The rise, the fall, the quiet before everything tipped.

I would be a hypocrite if I didn’t admit that I was raised in a family where alcohol was a constant—sipped casually, without question. It didn’t have to be social. A glass of wine could belong to any moment. The end of a long day. A quiet night alone. A bath, soft music, candlelight.

I never judged it.
Not in others. Not in myself.
Not until it began to cost something.

And in this case, it did.

He crossed a line—one I don’t soften or explain away.
He assaulted me.
There is no justification for it.
and it is not something I have forgotten.

But even then—
when I began to understand what he was carrying, what he had been shaped by—I found myself offering grace.

Not forgiveness. Not yet.
But grace.

Not for what he did.
But for the patterns that led him there.

At the clinic, as they checked me for a concussion, the police intervened.

I told them I didn’t want to press charges.

I didn’t want to be the reason his life collapsed.

I wanted to help him.
To guide him back to something I still believed was there.

His potential.

It may have been the most expensive decision I’ve ever made.

The first time it happened, I was awoken with a jolt. It was after a few days of bacchanal, unabandoned revelry that I was hoping to sleep off. I sat up, wide awake, watching him first toss and turn, then begin to breathe heavily and tremble.

I looked at my phone: 3:45 in the morning. I knew he had to work early, and that I would be responsible for making sure all the pieces would fall into place.

With heavy, shallow breath, he steadied himself, sitting up in an effort to catch it, but almost like hyperventilation, his arm buckled and he collapsed back onto his pillow and his body began convulsing.

“Deep breath,” I tried to soothe him.

Breathe from your belly. I placed my hand on his abdomen and instructed him to breathe into it, to no avail.

I could feel panic rise in him, followed by dry heaves and lips dampened by saliva.

I turned the light on, patted his chest, and asked that he go to the bathroom.

He clumsily rose, then fell, and I rose to assist an unforgiving body twice my size. His arm draped over my shoulders, I braced myself as we took one step at a time, his body trembling, words frightening: “I can’t go no more. I can’t do this.”

Alas, we made it to the bathroom and he collapsed on his knees in front of the toilet and allowed his body to purge the toxins that only hours earlier gave him strength and confidence.

I left him there, thinking he was okay, and laid back down in my bed, hoping to get a little more rest, knowing that I would have to sacrifice my morning to ensure that he didn’t dismiss his responsibilities.

I allowed my heart rate to soften just enough to feel like, even though I knew I probably wouldn’t fall back asleep, maybe my body would give me grace.

As soon as my eyelids blanketed my eyes, I was jolted out of that state when the floor shook.

I sat up, ran into the bathroom, and there he was, crumbled on the bathroom floor, fetal position, trembling.

I tried to reason with him. “You have to get up. Please, let’s stand up. I’ll help you.”

I managed, though it took several attempts, to get him to turn over and begin to crawl to the loveseat just outside the bathroom door.

Like a sack of bricks, he moved, one trembling foot at a time, arms reaching toward the small sofa, then body collapsing again.

I managed to get him to sit up, though slouched, in an effort to catch his breath.

Assuming that his body was going through withdrawals, I poured him a glass of coconut water for electrolytes and a small glass of wine, enough to soothe him.

As he sipped the small glass of wine, I could see his breath steady and shoulders relax. He drank the coconut water in two big gulps and relaxed into the loveseat, curled up into a ball, and found sleep again.

I lay in bed watching the clock.

5 in the morning.

He could get one hour of sleep. I would try to as well.

I kept the bedroom door open. I could hear him wake up and tremble, a series of quick, shallow breaths, then fall back asleep.

A half hour later, the birds began to chirp.

I slid open my metal shutters to invite the orange glow of sunrise, sat up, and began preparing myself for what would be a long day.

I laid out his clothing.
I arranged his dry bag and tackle box so they were easy to grab.

The clock ticked. Still had to pick up the rods and reels, and morning traffic was picking up.

Ordinarily, I wouldn’t go.

Ordinarily, I would sleep through his preparation and rise as soon as he left the casita so that I could ease into my daily routine:

A cup of hot tea to sip while I wander my jungle yard with my dog.
My morning pages, journaling through my thoughts from the day before.
Manifestation exercises to prepare for a day of success.
A mid-morning workout to seal it all in before I delve into manuscripts and illustrations for my clients.

But on this day, it was all hands on deck.

Rallying to
get him up,
into the shower,
dressed,
one foot in front of the other.

I dropped him at the boat, knowing that once he got behind the helm, his senses would kick in and he would endure.

I fought the pulse of morning traffic back to my casita.

Golf carts puttering behind flatbed trucks.
SUVs and dirt bikes weaving through pedestrians and bicyclists.

When I finally arrived home with relief that I was finally alone, I sat down at my kitchen table, opened my laptop, and through heavy, glassy eyes, stared at a blank screen.

No words, no thoughts, no ideas would come to mind.

I looked over at my tea kettle and a box of Earl Grey tea, but my heart began to pound at the thought of caffeine running through my veins.

I looked at my sneakers, wondering if a short run along the beach would give me a boost of energy, but it was too big of an ask for my body that was buzzing with exhaustion.

So instead, I poured myself a glass of wine and sat on my veranda in silence, staring into the secondary jungle, breathing softly as the wine calmed me after six hours of adrenaline pulsing through my body.

And with my last sip, I closed my front door, retreated into my bedroom, curled up under the sheets of a bed I’d yet had time to make, ignored any obligation I had that day, and fell asleep.

That day cost me more than I’d like to admit because not only did I not move forward with my client work, through my actions, though those actions,  I told him that I would set my needs aside to care for him.

What I hoped was a one-time incident became a pattern.

A cycle of sobriety.
A beer or two here and there.
A nudge in the wrong direction.

A text from someone who was going through a breakup and needed a shoulder to cry on, and all of a sudden, a few buckets of beers gone, a late night, waking up with goma, and a morning beer to balance.

And that beer almost takes the edge off, so why not one more?

And thus, the cycle begins again.

Builds up until he awakens to violent tremors in the middle of the night and I set my priorities aside to care for him.

He was a sinking ship, and I was doing everything possible to bail out the water, one bucket at a time, just so we could stay afloat—fortunate that my clients are kind, understanding people who’ve lived through their own trials and tribulations.

I did it to keep his insecurities at ease. Because I knew his potential.

Because while I chose to give him grace after the assault, that moment will never not haunt me.

When I wanted to stay at home and edit manuscripts, he always insisted that I pack my laptop into my grip and I just hoped we would land somewhere that I could pour time into my clients, rather than him.

And it never worked.

Not really.

I found myself unable to make my own decisions.

I was losing agency.

Grieving the life that I had curated—the one that fulfilled and inspired myself and my authors and readers.

And I didn’t just set my vision aside so I could take the time to care for him.

I set it aside because his insecurities had grown so intense that my work, my vision, and my accomplishments were yet another layer that threatened him.

I was in pure survival mode.

So not only was I working to bail out the water, bucket by bucket, I was becoming more and more like him.

Not out of choice.
Not because I thought it was an okay lifestyle.

But because if I didn’t, there would have been consequences I wasn’t willing to face, because my vision for success was not in alignment with his need to numb insecurities that grew more complicated through each cycle.

And then it happened.

3 in the morning.

I found myself wide awake for no rhyme or reason.

I couldn’t fall back asleep.

My heart pounded.

I tried to fall back asleep, but every iota of shame that I’d been numbing through sip after sip of red wine was circling through my mind, and I couldn’t take it.

I thought about every project I’d put on hold.
Every deadline I’d ignored.
Every email, unanswered.

As guilt rose in my chest, my breath got faster and lighter.

I couldn’t catch my breath.

I reached for my bedside water bottle and my hands trembled so much that I couldn’t pick it up.

I sat up, breathing heavily, stood up and started pacing, then returned to bed, tossing and turning.

Fetal position, I rocked back and forth and shook until I couldn’t shake anymore.

I’d fall into a light sleep until it happened again and again until the sun came up.

I couldn’t drink enough water.

I moved to the loveseat and tucked my knees under my chest, rocking back and forth, hoping I wasn’t about to have a heart attack.

He was by my side the whole time, and as soon as our neighborhood store was open—the one the General wheels to every morning—I looked at him and shamefully asked him to buy me an electrolyte drink and a bottle of wine.

He understood and dutifully responded, a small amount of relief washing over me, knowing that I would hopefully, soon, return to a sense of calm.

My hands shook as I reached for the glass.

I could barely get it to my mouth.

He sat next to me and caressed my back as I leaned forward to take a small sip, and then another one.

Soon enough, I had balanced my body just enough to bring the small ceramic cup up to my lips and take a satisfying sip.

I looked at him, through shame-filled eyes, a tear streaming down. What used to be a sexy, soothing ritual had taken a dark turn—it was never supposed to be that way.

“Please don’t tell anyone about this.”

He nodded. “Of course not.”

And that was the turning point.

That’s when I began to question every decision I’d made, looking at myself in the mirror, thinking back to every moment when things got bad, and then worse—to the point where I was almost drowning.

I wasn’t even trying to bail out the water anymore.

I was allowing myself to drown alongside him.

I thought back to the moment the ship started to fill with water. It was a slow leak, at first. It wasn’t always like this. He was a revered captain. Sought after. The kind of man others trusted to navigate waters they didn’t understand. 

And I could pinpoint every moment in a year-long cycle that led to his deep depression and my decision to manage it without any guidance—not knowing where the bilge pump was, I went into panic mode, picked up a bucket, and started bailing out the water.

My biggest fear was that, if I didn’t help him, he would turn into the General. His wheelchair like a worn armchair. Tattoos stretched across his skin, stories no one can quite read anymore. Bombita in hand—Just something to sip on and numb the senses so he wouldn’t have to think about a life that once was.

All of his accomplishments. All of his accolades. His passions, deteriorating at the bottom of a bottle of cheap Caribbean rum.

That’s why I picked up the bucket—it was an expensive bucket because it cost me my self.

But that morning, once my nerves calmed, I stood in my studio, looking around at a room that I designed so that I could work at my highest potential.

I took it light that day. It wasn’t about diving deep, but beginning again, reclaiming my true essence one small task at a time. I sat down to write through clouded thoughts.

I showered, washed my hair, rinsing the guilt and shame from a year tangled in good intention and survival masked as a good time.

I made a list of all of the opportunities I’d lost in that year, and then another list of the things I’d accomplished, which wasn’t nothing.

It was the second list that gave me the confidence to take a step forward and begin curating my life again.

That’s when I saw it posted on Facebook—the quote from Nietzsche, arguing that one must treat life as a work of art—both creator and creation—to give it meaning.

I went back and read everything that I’d written in the past year. Things that I’d kept hidden so that I wouldn’t make others feel uncomfortable—so that I wouldn’t make him feel uncomfortable.

I read through my goals, my dreams… promises that I’d made to myself and hadn’t kept.

I thought about the idea of treating life as a work of art, understanding that a piece of art, in and of itself, may not be inherently beautiful, but if we can look at each season as a different chapter, then look at the body of work as a whole, then perhaps there is a hidden beauty in the darkest hours, at 3 in the morning, when the bucket is just too heavy to lift overhead.

But the question I pose is:

At what point do you set it down and swim to shore?