Post by Rook on Feb 24, 2010 23:49:02 GMT -5
This morning was my last time working on the ship. It felt good, until I walked away. Then it started to get very sad. Four years I've been working there. I fell in love with the ships, the programs, the message and the purpose the Ocean Institute has. There are no hard feelings about it of course; in fact I’ll be missed so they say. George Mack gave me a plaque with a piece of the ship on it, an old broken belaying pin. It’s shipboard tradition that valued crew members take a piece of the ship with them when they ‘swallow the anchor.’ He made a nice speech about how awesome I was, and how they were going to miss me which means a lot. I'm the first person in a couple years who has left on decent terms. Most people get fired or quit on the spot in a bitter rage.
Leaving the OI, and more importantly the ships, is going to impact me in a way I’ll have trouble putting to words, now or ever. It was my first real job that lasted longer than six months...and it lasted four years. I think it's largely defined who I am, and that's something that makes it that much harder to leave. Not hard to leave the work, the work is hard and thankless, but hard to leave the ships and the people I love. I don’t know how to describe how I feel. I doubt anyone feels this way leaving an office job. Working Maritime programs is a highly creative job that required an enormous emotional investment. You’re not just reading words off a paper; you’re not just making motions. It’s easy to spot when someone’s phoning it in or don’t get it. You have to believe in what you’re saying. For a few short hours you have to not just pretend but know, in your heart and soul, that you’re a sailor from the 1830s. It’s the only way you can convince the kids. If you believe they can’t help it, they get wrapped up in it. You have to lose yourself in the role play. In a weird way it becomes real, and it comes home with you and will probably follow me for the rest of my life, in varying degrees of intensity. Not that I won’t encounter the same thing in the Army, but I’ll have had this first.
It really comes down to change. As Her Grace Mira put it “We humans aren't geared very well toward change.” I agree. Like most predators, we like the routine. I think it has to do with the security of routine. If life worked well this way yesterday and the week before than it's bound to work tomorrow. And if everything works that means you've got access to the food and you'll survive. I need the change, because even if in the back of your head all you need is food and shelter I’m not an animal and I do need more. The OI, as much as I love it, wasn’t enough. Or maybe it was too much.
I was burning out, and getting sick of it, and needed a break...but it's sad that I won’t be there again. I won’t put on the top hat and waist coat except for fun. I won’t stand on the quarterdeck and say 'Hell afloat!" again. There will be no late nights talking to instructors or climbing aloft to fix something. I mean I know that those things will be replaced with cool things when I'm in the Army...but in this limbo time I feel utterly lost, even though I know where I'm going on Monday. Until I get into the Army I’ve just walked away from who I was, but haven’t become who I’m going to be yet. That’s a scary place to be.
Leaving the OI, and more importantly the ships, is going to impact me in a way I’ll have trouble putting to words, now or ever. It was my first real job that lasted longer than six months...and it lasted four years. I think it's largely defined who I am, and that's something that makes it that much harder to leave. Not hard to leave the work, the work is hard and thankless, but hard to leave the ships and the people I love. I don’t know how to describe how I feel. I doubt anyone feels this way leaving an office job. Working Maritime programs is a highly creative job that required an enormous emotional investment. You’re not just reading words off a paper; you’re not just making motions. It’s easy to spot when someone’s phoning it in or don’t get it. You have to believe in what you’re saying. For a few short hours you have to not just pretend but know, in your heart and soul, that you’re a sailor from the 1830s. It’s the only way you can convince the kids. If you believe they can’t help it, they get wrapped up in it. You have to lose yourself in the role play. In a weird way it becomes real, and it comes home with you and will probably follow me for the rest of my life, in varying degrees of intensity. Not that I won’t encounter the same thing in the Army, but I’ll have had this first.
It really comes down to change. As Her Grace Mira put it “We humans aren't geared very well toward change.” I agree. Like most predators, we like the routine. I think it has to do with the security of routine. If life worked well this way yesterday and the week before than it's bound to work tomorrow. And if everything works that means you've got access to the food and you'll survive. I need the change, because even if in the back of your head all you need is food and shelter I’m not an animal and I do need more. The OI, as much as I love it, wasn’t enough. Or maybe it was too much.
I was burning out, and getting sick of it, and needed a break...but it's sad that I won’t be there again. I won’t put on the top hat and waist coat except for fun. I won’t stand on the quarterdeck and say 'Hell afloat!" again. There will be no late nights talking to instructors or climbing aloft to fix something. I mean I know that those things will be replaced with cool things when I'm in the Army...but in this limbo time I feel utterly lost, even though I know where I'm going on Monday. Until I get into the Army I’ve just walked away from who I was, but haven’t become who I’m going to be yet. That’s a scary place to be.