Looking Back at One Week Pre-Covid
Today is March 9th. I am sitting outside on my back porch in shorts and a zip up that my (really incredible) boyfriend bought me over the weekend. Right now it says it is 68 Degrees out. It’s March 9th. Normally in New Hampshire it doesn’t get this warm until April or May. It is gorgeous out. These are Winter days that we dream of. Well, I would just like to applaud myself. My first full winter home since 2013. Guys, I made it!!!My very fluffy orange cat Jack is staring at me. Wishing to come outside. But we have coyotes around here and I can’t lose another cat at a young age. Soooo, he is definitely an indoor cat. My dog Brady is chilling in the sun with me. His ice blue eyes just light up when the sun hits them. The sun is shining. The birds are chirping. Life is so beautiful.
“Life is so beautiful”
Disclaimer: This is a blog I wrote One week pre-Covid. One week exactly before everything in our lives changed. Sometimes we need to look back to move forward. And I invite you to come on this journey with me. This is the day I appreciated how much I enjoyed being on land. A week later I felt like all of my reasons were slowly being taken away from me. I haven’t changed anything I wrote before or after this disclaimer. I just want to really understand what life was like before everything changed. Don’t we all wish we could turn back time?
These are things I would have been missing. Fourteen years I worked as a Professional Dancer on a Cruise Ship. I accomplished so many of my career goals in those 14 years. I will never regret any experience I had being there. I am more than grateful for being able to travel the whole world while performing. Words will never express the joy those two things alone brought to me.
But, Two month ago I made an incredibly hard decision. To say goodbye to my years working on ships once and for all. And as much as I absolutely loved the time I had away, on my own, traveling, performing, growing, changing.. These are some things that you miss when you are off doing what everyone thinks is the absolute best job in the world. It is pretty high up there, but here’s to the things I am so happy to be able to enjoy in my life again.
Driving. I absolutely, very much, enjoy driving. It may seem strange. Maybe it is partly because my years on ships. I don’t mind traffic. I love driving long distances. Give me a road trip any day. I have driven to and from Florida I would say at least ten times. Yea, 24 hours. It clears my mind. I will do it with other people but to be perfectly honest I LOVE driving on my own. I drive to my family in Upstate NY all the time. You know how long that is. Seven hours. I don’t even mind. Since we moved to NH when I was 12 we would go back and forth to NY all the time. I could do that drive with my eyes closed. When I moved back from Australia I did that drive and it was like the colors got brighter. When my ex and I broke up I did that drive and it gave me time to really process everything. I listened to Podcasts, I played every break up song imaginable. I love driving. It gives me time to process life. Sing at the top of my lungs. Listen to a pod cast. Being stuck in a car with yourself is actually very freeing. Being stuck in a car with someone else, yikes bikes.
Unless you’ve met your match. Which I think I have.
Sounds. I know. It is so normal for you that you don’t even realize how beautiful the sounds of the great outdoors are. When you are in steel walls, guess what? You don’t hear birds. You don’t hear much of anything actually. Yes, you hear the sound of the waves which is beautiful. But man, the sound of birds chirping is absolutely one of my favorite things. Speaking of beautiful sounds. The sound of rain is also something you hugely miss onboard. Thunder and Lightning storms used to terrify me. But since not hearing them ever. It became something that I loved when I came home. Just go outside and have a listen today. It is so peaceful.
Light. Sounds strange right? Imagine never seeing lights at night for eight months. The only way you will see lights at night is if you have an “overnight.” An “overnight” is when you are able to stay off the ship overnight, of course. I probably had maybe a handful or two in my 14 years. They are far and few between. Also, if you don’t have a port hole, you wake up in complete darkness. No day light for you. Crazy right? Some simple parts of life that you don’t even realize that you most likely take for granted. I love seeing lights reflecting on the lake at night. Street lights. City lights. The sun coming up. Windows with sunshine peeking in. I was able to have a port hole with my position onboard. But man ohhhh man do I remember the days waking up not knowing the time or place or day because it was completely pitch black in your room. I know I’ve said this before: We give a little to be able to live the life we live. But these are just some things I couldn’t give up again.
Jack & Brady. My cat and dog I spoke about before. We don’t get those luxuries onboard. I don’t get to snuggle with my cat every night or take my dog on a walk during the day. For all my animal lovers out there, I am sure you understand how important it is to you to come home to your pet at the end of a long day at work. At the end of a really difficult day onboard, you don’t get to come home to your dog greeting you at the door, drooling and wagging their tail. Imagine coming home to your pet after a long 8 months without a day off. That is a long time without love from an animal. Especially if you love those fluffy little things as much as I do. It honestly got harder to leave them every contract. Which brings me to my next point…
My nieces and nephews. My oldest niece is going to be 10 in May. Don’t get me wrong, I know I will still miss things along the way. But the older they were all getting the more I was missing their lives and the harder it was to leave. I am so thankful that the day of Face-time has made it’s way through during my time on ships. But, in the beginning it wasn’t possible to see your family and friends faces on a video over the internet. Nor did the ship have good enough internet anyway. Crazy how much things have changed over time. It has been tough. All those years being away from them and not being able to watch them grow up.
Events. Holidays, Birthdays, Football Games, Concerts, Weddings, Funerals, Family Reunions. The list goes on. It is heartbreaking for us to miss these things while we are away. I will say I was able to sign off during some of my contracts. I made it to three weddings, two funerals, and a burnt down house. In saying that, the last wedding I went to I was told would be the final time. I’m not sure why someone would spend thousands of dollars in flights, fines, and hotels to travel literally across the world for days and lose out on a paycheck for something that was incredibly important to them. Weirdly enough I know someone that was able to sign off for a “Canada Day” party. But that’s neither here nor there. Insert Awkward Smile. It is so distressing, missing so much. You may think we don’t care or we are in our own world. I mean, we kind of are to be fair. TRUST, we don’t feel that way though. We are missing home and all of those events so incredibly much. To be home for all of these occasions now has been a dream. Don’t get me wrong, I got used to Holidays on ships. I began loving Christmas onboard with our Secret Santa’s and all the festivities. (Check out my blog post The Most Wonderful Time of the Year ) Honestly, I prefer New Years Eve on a Cruise Ship. Thanksgiving though, nope. It’s one Holiday that is not the same. Besides that, we miss more than just Holidays. My goal this year was going to watch the New England Patriot’s play live as much as possible. I ended up going to three games! (GO PATRIOT’S!!!) They were amazing. Sigh. Tom Brady… Also, I’ve been able to go to two weddings since being home. My niece’s Baptism. Watch my nephews play baseball. Watch my old studio at a dance competition. Go to watch shows and concerts. Simple things that you may think are a burden, or expensive, or you get to lazy to go to. We just wish to be able to go to while onboard.
Love. First I’m not meaning all about “love- love”. I’m talking about love and friendship. Let me be clear. I have met some friends on ships that I still speak to almost every day. We still love and support each other. I have met some people that I fell in love with and broke my heart. I have met some people that still have a very special place in my heart. The thing is, they are all spread out all around the world. Which has always been something I found to be pretty stupendous. When I was on ships that is. Then, I came home and none of my “ship friends” were around. You travel the world with these (mostly) incredible human beings and then that’s it. “Bye Forever” ::::Waves::: Ten months together and you may never see them ever again. For your friends from home, life moves on. You come home and they have all these plans made without you. You lose connections. These things you have to rebuild when you are back on land. They take time. I am loving being able to reconnect in different ways with my best friends again. And as for love-love, well it just didn’t work out for me on the ocean. I have always been, and always will be a lover of love. So it was difficult putting myself back in the position to get my heart broken again. I didn’t want to meet anyone if I went back. But, I didn’t want to cut myself off from human interaction. Then somehow my crush from when I was 16 got dropped back into my life again. I don’t remember much of our relationship back then. (Another blog about him is in the process of being written.) But I know we wouldn’t be together if I had gone back on a ship. Ship Romances work for some people don’t get me wrong. I was definitely not one of those people. Now though I get to be with this incredible human being who has become my best friend. I get to be with him and not worry about traveling across the world to go see him. I don’t have to worry about visas. I don’t have to worry about him going back to do another contract or where he is going or ship life. We all know ship life. AyAyayay EYE ROLL. I get to go on dates with him. I get to travel with him and come home and be next to him still. I get to buy things for the house with him. I get to have Holiday’s with him. I get to look to the future with him. I get to have someone by my side who is the best person I’ve ever had by my side. If I had not decided to write that email two months ago, I wouldn’t have experienced any of these beautiful experiences with him.
Those are only some of the big things.
Look, there are things I miss. Things I will absolutely forever miss. But when I reflected on my decade, I realized I actually only looked at the negatives of all the pain that was caused while I was away. And when I looked at my year ahead and what I wanted for the future me- The two just no longer made sense together. Sometimes we just really have to dig deep down and make really tough decisions.
I was told some words of wisdom by multiple friends of mine that had recently made the transitions from the ocean to land. They explained to me how difficult it really is. They explained that there would be many days and sleepless nights that you question your decision. Days when you will contemplate going back. It’s an “easy paycheck” as they say. We live a wonderful life. Traveling the world while performing. But you are never truly grounded. The normal things that you do on land every day are not normal for us. They take time.
It makes it difficult and confusing and you have to be really freaking strong to get land legs again.
So, here I am. Looking at all the positives of life on land. While I sit here now with the windows open, bare feet on the ground, letting fresh air in, birds chirping. So much more is to come in this next chapter.
So much more.
One week.
To look back and see how inspired I was by life one week before Covid breaks my heart. A lot of those things were taken away. No one knows how to deal with a Pandemic. I think everyone was doing the best that they could in their own time. It is crazy though huh? Really seeing how much can change in one week. You never know where life is going to take you. So stop being so afraid. Go do the thing you wanted to do today. Go tell that person you love them today. Go live it today. Because as we can all see and appreciate…
a week can change everything.
