Hey, maybe I’ll dye my hair
maybe I’ll move somewhere
Maybe I’ll hit the bars
Maybe I’ll count the stars until the dawn
Me I will move on
Maybe I’ll dye my hair
Maybe I’ll move somewhere
Maybe I’ll clear my junk
Maybe I’ll just get drunk on apple wine
~ Hard Candy Christmas
When I walked up my very first gangway what feels like a terribly long time ago; everyone told me: you will know when it’s time.
At the time, I laughed. I thought – like everyone who walks up a gangway most likely – that that time would never come. Why would you leave? Why would you want to?
They say every job comes with an expiration date. I didn’t think that would prove to be true about ships, but circumstances change, times change, more importantly people change.
I changed.
The contract following my next one will be my last.
The gypsy is going to park her caravan, unpack her suitcase, and put down roots.
The decision to leave the fleet in just over a year was a surprisingly easy one. A year is two more contracts, it’s the end of my student loan – which is always when I was planning on looking into other options – and well, it’s time. It’s perhaps past time, before I start feeling like Bilbo Baggins after he had been too long on the road: all stretched out, like butter spread over too much bread.
If I stay here much longer, I run the risk of never leaving, and that’s not the kind of thing that I want to happen to me. This is not – nor has it ever been – what I want to do with the rest of my life. I have come to the startling realization that for the first time in a very long time, the sea, or at least this particular aspect of the sea, can no longer offer me what I want or need out of life. I no longer wake in the mornings cheerful and looking forward to my day, rather I drag myself through it, and that’s not a good thing for anyone; least of all the people I am paid to serve.
I have been offered the chance to see incredible things, I will always treasure those opportunities, the people I’ve met, loved, laughed with and cried with, my shipboard families are what I’m sure I will miss the most. But I have a real family, now more so than ever. And I am no longer willing to separate myself from them for such long periods of time. I am ready – beyond ready – for a job where the hours end, where weekends aren’t just another ignored day on the calendar, and where holidays can not only be planned in advance but relied on. I am ready for a life that is not constantly in flux, not constantly dictated by the tides and someone else’s contract dates.
It’s time.
There’s a reason, of course, that I am not doing this right away. It would be foolish to walk away without first doing at least some research, while I have two dayjobs at home that will carry me while I search for my next adventure, I cannot go from full throttle to full brake. There are plans to make, and some of those are mental. Leaving ships is not just a matter of retiring from a job; it’s a complete shift in lifestyle, a change in mentality that takes time to adjust to. It’s not something you jump into.
For those of you shaking your head and wondering at what I’m eventually going to be giving up, allow me to elaborate:
Yes, I will be saying goodbye to a lot of things; no more day trips to Hong Kong Disneyland, Universal Singapore, or dozens of other places. No more waking up in the morning and trying to remember if I’m in Istanbul or Greece. But I have been lucky enough to go to all those places, I have seen and done so much in the last five and a half years…
By the time I leave? It will have been nearly seven years of incredible things; days where I woke up and walked the great wall of china, waded in rivers in Alaska, ate fresh smoked salmon, watched rainbows form over the bow, sipped champagne at the end of a world voyage, got a crick in my neck from looking up at the Big Buddha of Lampoon, wept at Cinderella’s castle in Hong Kong and Toyko, played with the sting rays in Bora Bora.
I was given Barcelona for my birthday.
…and Honolulu.
…and Lima.
I’ve lain on my back on the bow and counted the stars, I’ve gasped in wonder at the Northern lights and tilted my face up to the chill Alaskan rain. I’ve seen the salmon run in the old red light district of Ketchikan, played countless games of pool in local pubs, walked the paw prints of White Fang and taken the White Pass Railway along dead horse trail of the long gone sourdoughs. I’ve fed husky puppies, seen penguins and trundled along on the back of an elephant. I’ve seen cheetahs stretching in the lazily hot African sun and hunted for Lemurs with my camera in the jungles of Madagascar. I’ve eaten kangaroo, rattlesnake and emu. I’ve listened to the silent wonder of a natural underground cathedral. I’ve trudged through the Canadian snow to see local performances that no other in the world could compare to, I’ve eaten Prince Edward Island’s famous ice cream and been introduced to Anne of Green Gables. I’ve wept at the tomb of the Arizona. I’ve asked Eva Peron’s blessing and I’ve stood in the immense shadow of the pyramids, the sphinx and the temple of Luxor. I’ve snorkeled over the Great Barrier Reef, jumped off the Auckland sky tower, sat three rows from the front at the Sydney Opera House production of Madama Butterfly, and stared at the horizon from the mast of an Australian tall ship. I’ve para-sailed over the Mexican coast, and walked barefoot in the crystal sand of Hawaii sipping drinks with umbrellas in them.
I’ve even paddled a dugout canoe.
I’ve met celebrities, dined with internationally known musicians, sung solos, sorted music, hosted formal dinners, danced at formal balls, and worn more costumes than I can count. I’ve danced through migraines, pain that had me limping, and exhaustion that threatened to knock me flat, and I’ve done it with a legitimate smile on my face.
I fell in love, out of love and then dizzily back in love again. I lived out here to the fullest extent that it was possible. I gave this everything I had. Those are years I would trade for nothing, moments of glory and pleasure and the kind of things that most people never get the chance to see in a dozen lifetimes let alone one…
And that is not even half of it…
And there will be more, in the time yet to come.
So why am I leaving? Why on earth would I leave that all behind?
Because of the other side of the coin, the side that is so seldom discussed, that no-one sees but the people closest to me, and sometimes not even them…
Because it has also been five years of not having a place to truly put down roots, five years of feeling the connections to my home and my ‘normal’ life slowly fraying at the edges, of returning to Victoria and finding that I have no one to call and don’t remember what street leads where or what bus to get on. Of feeling totally adrift, to the point where you don’t even know where ‘home’ is anymore, because there are pieces of yourself scattered so far and wide that you’re hard pressed to keep them all linked together. You can’t catch all the threads before they fray and are lost to the water forever.
Five years of working up to 12 hours a day seven days a week and coming home so tired that I can’t see straight or think straight only to get up in the morning and do it all over again. Seasons of being ripped apart by people who have problems I can’t fix but have to attempt to because they expect someone to and I’m the one who’s there. Of extra duties that come unexpectedly and the expectation that you will of course never say no, and if you do, you run the risk of not being seen as a team player. Of pressure that builds up to the point of boiling with no release valve, and expectations sometimes so high that they are impossible to live up to. Of restless sleep and emotional meltdowns that never saw the light beyond my cabin door. Years of feeling like a second class citizen because you’re not a paying passenger, of forced smiles as often as genuine and packed down emotions that have sometimes come dangerously close to exploding. Five years of work ‘days’ that are six months long and a job that never seems to be finished no matter how much of yourself you give to it, of never having time or energy for a social life, and if you do chose to make one for yourself risking sacrificing what little sleep you can get in exchange. Because of IPM drama, inter-departmental politics, irrational levels of stress and countless other small things that go on behind the curtain that add up to waking up one day and finding you aren’t that fond of the woman in the mirror. When little things that should require nothing more than a shrug and a smile to fix erupt into world war three, it’s not a good sign.
Becoming snappy and irritable and impatient, gaining circles under your eyes that look more like bruises, and a general distaste for the human race that verges on loathing.
That’s not where I want to be. More importantly, that’s not where I want to stay.
For years now, the whole world has been my home…
And I’m finding now? That I’m aching for a home that’s a little more specific than that…