After what feels like the longest 24 hours of my life I am off the crutches. I woke up this morning, took one step, nearly fell over, took another step – no pain…after a continuous hour of no pain I was deemed safe to walk on my own. I detest being a cripple, so being off the crutches feels remarkably freeing. In truth they still don’t know exactly what happened to my heel, it came up out of the blue and seems to have faded just as quickly. Everyone has their own theory – mine being that I cracked it really hard against the corner of a desk a few day ago which probably resulted in a mild bone bruise – but I’m far far from a doctor…all I know is that it hurt, and now it seems to be better.
Packing is in the last stages. Tonight I’ll strip my sheets off my bed, fold them up neat and replace them with the company sheets. I can stand feeling like I’m sleeping in a hospital for two nights, otherwise it means packing them the very last night when I’m going to be harried and exhausted. The last thing to go into the cases will be my electronics, my crystal and anchor stones and my sea-shells, which, despite knowing that shells are designed by nature to be strong, will always go in one of my hard sided cases, between several layers of clothing, because if one of them breaks I will be more than a little upset.
Tomorrow is the Grand Black and Gold Masked Ball, which will likely be the last major entry I write up for a while, since I’m sure the first few days of my vacation will be spent doing very little except sewing, watching mindless television and sleeping a very great deal.
We’re only two days out now. There are times when you swear you can catch the tiniest whisps of civilization drifting to us on the sea-breezes. Imagination of course, out here there’s still nothing but sea, salt and sky…but you imagine it none the less.
Final handover notes are being typed up, medical forms collected, I-95 forms handed in, final checklists sent down and signed off on. The proof of the final daily program came through in the email today, chock full of fond farewells from every department.
Final evaluations will come day after tomorrow.
Hard to believe it, but at long last …it really is almost over.