The key to overcoming buyer’s remorse is to take your time, take one room and make it your own….introduce yourself to the house
This is also what it feels like walking onto a new ship. This was someone else’s home, someone else’s office, someone else’s life, until this morning when that person walked off the ship and you walked on in their place. You have to have some level of respect for the person who came before you (even if their computer system is so flawed that you have no idea how they managed to make anything work on it), and you have to have a lot of respect for the fact that – in this case at least – that person will be coming back.
Walking into the library on the flagship is like coming home for me, I take over from the person who has had stewardship during my time away, roll my eyes at any silliness that may have occurred in my absence, and promptly fall directly back into my routine. Coming onto one of my summer ships is a different story, and in this particular case? This time I’m the filler. So I wander through the stacks, figuring out which are old friends (my fingertips hitch on Dance with Dragons and yank it down to stow under my desk long before any passenger would have known it was there), and which are friends yet to be discovered. An adjustment here, a tweak there, the little things that make you adjust to a new floating home.
I expected to feel very alone here. Most of my shipboard friends are on a different vessel this Alaska season, and while we cross ports with them twice a week, its’ not the same as being on the same ship. As it turns out (as it always turns out) I know more people than I anticipated…in particular the HRM on this ship was with me on my very first contract what seems like so long ago…it took me a moment to recognize her when she walked into the orientation brief, until she flashed me a smile and said “hey Shaughnessy, welcome back.”
And so the beat goes on, new EM, but old CD (who gave me a big hug when I walked into the office), same library layout, different furniture…and strangest for me on this class of vessel of course- entirely new Party Band…but that’s a different story….
This season I’m porting out of Vancouver, a different circumstance for me as prior to this I’ve been lucky enough to port out of my home town once a week – but everything changes, and perhaps it will be good for me to stare Alaska in the eyes without the possibility of running home to recover. I can’t help but wonder what this Alaska season will bring you see, they say things come in threes, and the last two Alaska seasons have both provided me with dear friends and massive changes…if it’s true that things come in threes, then perhaps something else even more amazing…and more positively challenging, is sitting at the base of a glacier somewhere…waiting for me…