The last day of a contract is as much organized chaos as the first one. In some ways I’ll be glad to put this ship behind me – what was supposed to be a nice easy summer run turned into Drama Central (I now know why they nicknamed this particular ship the Black Pearl), but in others the end of this contract feels unusual. I just can’t quite place why.
No matter how many times you go through the debark process you’re always convinced that you’ve forgotten something. And you end up sitting up at night, in your little cocoon up on the top bunk, staring at the ceiling trying to remember what it is you’ve forgotten.
Evaluation? Check (and passed with flying colours)
Administration projects? Check (finished a day early)
1-95 and customs declaration turned in? Check.
Packed? Check.
Really really packed? Check.
Somehow at times like this things prey on your mind. You think back to other debarks, and other people , and they circle around in your mind. Unlike most of my debarks, I don’t have any very close friends on this ship to say goodbye to. While my acquaintances in the cast have told me that if I don’t come out tonight they will come pounding on my door to get me – I doubt that they actually would. I think this is one of the few ships that, had I not made a point of telling people I was leaving, I could have slipped out as quietly as I arrived and no one would really have been the wiser.
Perhaps that’s what’s bothering me. I feel something like a ghost in my own life just now. I have this whole contract. There are some situations that somehow are more difficult to let go of that others, and this class of ship on this type of run reminds me of them. Perhaps it always will, I’m not really sure. Perhaps eventually that situation will resolve itself, or time will give me the closure that circumstance refuses to – again I’m not sure.
Either way, I remain quietly glad that Alaska is done with me for another season.