Tuesday feb 22nd
I've now been back in Vancouver for 11 days.
The first couple of days back home were very strange, and I felt extremely strong nostalgia towards being on the ship, and I also felt completely lost as to what to do with my time, feeling overwhelmingly bored. I guess one of the perks of being on the ship is that, since you are very limited in what you are able to do, the decision of what to do with your time becomes somewhat easier. Whereas, on land, there is infinite possibility of what to do, but any given course of action takes a whole lot more time and commitment to achieve. Since I am only in Vancouver for another couple of weeks before going on another ship again, it doesn't feel like it's worth the effort of investing myself too much into any given course of action while I am here.
As a result I've spent most of my time relaxing and contemplating the future. I did buy the travel-bass that I have been wanting to buy, and now the only thing stopping me from bringing it onto my new ship is the colossal price of the flight-case, which costs almost as much as the bass itself - utterly criminal.
One difficult thing about going on a five month adventure on your own, is that upon returning home, all that you have left of your trip is in your head, and it can be a bit difficult realizing that you have no one with whom you can truly share the experience. On a ship gig you are surrounded by people who are living the same life as you, but once that is done with, it can be a tough realizing that you must learn to let go of the experience - this is not to say to forget it, but simply to accept where you are, and to accept that it has now become a purely personal experience. I guess that the most valuable lasting quality of such a trip, beyond memories, is the degree to which is changes you and matures you as a person, and the degree to which you retain those changes once you leave. A certain amount of those changes are very context specific, and will probably only reappear for me when I am put again in a similar context, away from the people and places where I grew up. A certain amount of them I think are with me even here, but they are subtle, and require more time spent away from home to develop.
One comforting discovery I have made is that I now know that I am able to function on my own in a completely new environment where I do not know anybody at all, and I am able to recreate a new network of friends and acquaintances. A tough thing about returning home is that it is a lot more difficult here to meet new people, because you do not automatically have something assignificant as a workplace in common with all of the people around you. You really have to go out and make the effort if you want to break into or create new networks of people in the city, involving yourself in things that connect you to new larger circles of people within certain confined area. On the ship, this is already done for you.
I am home for two more days, then I am up on the sunshine coast for a long weekend with family, and then I will be back in Vancouver for a few more days before heading to the Mediterranean. After that, I am not certain what will happen. Being back in Vancouver has gotten me back into thinking about my long-term career and what my dream situation would be, and I seem to change my mind about this every day. One important thing that I have realized is that I need the outside pressure of something unfamiliar to keep me motivated, and I operate much better when I am not in my comfort zone. Unfortunately Vancouver in general has become a giant comfort zone for me, and while I realize that there is a lot more to experience and to do here, I think that for the short term at least it will be very good for me to stay outside of it, so that I can come home and feel that I have changed enough to find it novel again.
