![\"20160229005311431\"](\"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/20160229005311431.jpg\")
I have been living this life for long enough that I forget sometimes that other people haven\u2019t. The chaos of embark\/debark day is so familiar to me that I seldom really see it anymore, if someone extremely close to me is debarking, then of course I\u2019ll notice (and if it\u2019s Amras, cue the waterworks, but that\u2019s different), but for the most part, people simply come and go and come back again and life goes on. It gets\u2026easier.<\/p>\n
It only jolts home to me just how unusual this life is when I see someone else going through the things that I have gone through so often for the first time. Well, perhaps not quite the first time, but the first \u201creal\u201d time.<\/p>\n
The librarian on my current ship is new to the company, like all of us she\u2019s far from home and breaking into life on the water, and like all librarians, she\u2019s worn down already by the strain of the job. She\u2019s been on-board for just over a month, and in that time we\u2019ve had about three turn around days, but none of them have been ones that \u201ccounted\u201d. \u00a0Until today, she hasn\u2019t had anyone leave. Today, almost all her \u201cpeople\u201d left at once.\u00a0 And she\u2019s not used to it yet. Watching her standing there in the hallway, her eyes red from trying very hard not to cry, I just\u2026didn\u2019t know exactly what to say<\/p>\n
Everyone\u2019s leaving!<\/em><\/p>\n Oh dear, first debark day. Don\u2019t worry hun, it gets easier, before you know it you\u2019ll be like the rest of us\u2026it will hurt less. I promise it does get easier.<\/em><\/p>\n But\u2026but everyone\u2019s leaving! <\/em><\/p>\n I know\u2026it sucks.<\/em><\/p>\n And it does, or at least it used to. I found myself wondering when that changed, when it became something I was so used to. When I stopped grieving for people leaving me and instead realized that there was a high chance I would see them again, and if we were real friends we would keep in touch in between. One of the teammates that\u2019s joining today is someone I worked with two years ago, and the first thing she did yesterday after getting her job requirements organized was to come find me and give me a hug before class. Within a few hours it was as if we had never been apart. The real ones, they stick around.<\/p>\n But it\u2019s hard to explain that to someone who only knows that at the moment she is watching all her friends pack up suitcases and trundle down the gangway.<\/p>\n For my part, I just laced my fingers with Amras\u2019\u00a0 – he joined today to sail with me for the rest of the cruise \u2013 and thanked the universe that I had come so far from being that girl crying in the hallway.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I have been living this life for long enough that I forget sometimes that other people haven\u2019t. The chaos of embark\/debark day is so familiar to me that I seldom really see it anymore, if someone extremely close to me … Continue reading