“He was sure that somewhere in the future there would be questions about muddy shoes and duckweed encrusted pink dresses. But that was the future – and it lay on the other end of a long warm afternoon that contained planks and ropes and a pond. The future could wait.” – Good Omens
It occurs to me sometimes that as people we are far too wrapped up in the concept of the future. We are obsessed with labeling and compartmentalizing our lives into little neat boxes that are easily described and easily sorted. If someone breaks the walls of those boxes, or presents us with a situation that simply doesn’t fit in them, we have a tendency to panic. That’s not bad, far from it, it’s just human nature.
People sometimes think that out here we’re free of that kind of social reliance, free of that kind of judgmental requirement. Not so. When you live the majority of your life in a closed environment where everyone knows everyone not by 6 people, but by 2 or less, where relationships are considered fresh meat for the gossip hounds and the daily events that go on behind the glitz and glamor of the guest world would make the average head spin – you get used to boxing your life up perhaps even more so than you do on land. The three biggest of course, have “PERSONAL” “PROFESSIONAL” and “HOME” scrawled across them in big black permanent marker.
The biggest one next that, under personal, is a very small thing indeed, and the writing on it is tremulous careful McLain’s script, as if whoever wrote it were trying to treat it as delicately as possible for fear you might damage its contents: “Future?”
As with anyone, there is never, ever, not a question mark.
Even for me, despite the fact that I have my next two contracts signed , despite the fact that I know where I’m going and know where my next paycheck is coming from, there is – as always – a question mark in front of my future.
There always is, because the future is always ahead of us, we never catch up with it.
Living in the present can be a difficult thing to do, especially when the future contains three weeks of semi-relaxation, and possible resolution to multiple conflicting issues made more difficult by distance. When the cruise gets to have under 50 days left (and as of today, we’re at 49), you start to long for the end even though you don’t intend to. Your mind races ahead to days when you don’t have to live your life by a schedule (which is actually a challenge when you’ve become so used to it), when you can log into the internet without worrying that you can’t afford another card, when you can pick up the phone and know that your call is going to go through without the aid of a dodgy satellite line.
A friend of mine on board came up to me the other day and started to joke, then took one look at my face and put a hand on my shoulder instead:
I’ll give you middle ground kiddo – you are one day closer. Every day, is one day closer.
It’s hit the hardest point in the cruise to be honest. At the beginning of all this I said that the World Voyage runs in cycles, the first third everyone loves everyone, the last third everyone loves everyone, the middle – everything slumps. We try and focus on the present, try and psych ourselves up for the endless sea days and the low-lying exhaustion that seems to have permeated the ship…because while the guests can show their weariness, we cannot. Do it in your own cabin, on your own time.
The show must go on, and all that.
So yes, the future can wait. For now, I look forward to Hong Kong and all the rest, particularly to Naples and Greece…
But in the back of my heart, curled there with the rest of my traveling ‘home’, is the warm glow that comes with the knowledge that soon I’ll be able to wake up when I want to in the mornings, I’ll be able to go for walks without worrying about where I’m going or if I’ll be safe.
49 more days to go…