Day 49
Relationships on this ship are interesting.
Someone, a while ago, and I don't remember who, pointed out that it is easy to get really close to people quickly on this ship because of how much time we spend together. If you think about how long it takes you to become really good friends with someone in real life, and how many hours a day you tend to spend with that person over that span of time. Here you are basically spending the same amount of time together, just compressed. Because not only do you go on adventures and explore countries together but you go to school with people and you eat with them and live with them and work out with them and play sports and watch movies and play cards and eat snacks and lay by the pool and procrastinate homework and make music and on and on. You are spending an abnormal amount of time with people. And while you are doing all of those things you talk. You learn people's entire life stories, past relationships, current relationships, regrets, goals, dreams, wishes, and fears all very quickly.
When you accelerate time like we are it makes for some interesting drama. Relationship were formed within the first week, and then broken and then reformed and then changed and then broken. Now its awkward and you hear the gossip and this embarrassing thing happened to this person and this guy tried to get with this girl at a club but she wasn't having it and now they can't even look at each other when they pass in the halls. Which they inevitably will because this place is not all that big. And the whole idea of one guy getting with multiple girls and then those girls finding out about each other through the grapevine is suddenly magnified times 1000 under the magnifying glass that is living on a ship together. For four months. And we aren't even half way through.
The relationships that you form with people on this ship can be equally as rewarding as they are devastating. One person you can remember fondly while another you remember as stabbing you in the back or breaking your heart. How interesting to see that unfold before your very eyes.
As a rule I don't partake in gossip all that much. This past summer was an extreme exception. I am way more comfortable with my small group of friends and helping each other navigate the confusing paths of our relationships. The whole he said, she said thing is exhausting, although entertaining to eves drop on every once in a while. But mainly we just confide in each other the various woes or successes that we are facing and then keep them to ourselves. We don't try to help, we don't try to meddle, we just listen and give feedback from time to time. And it works well.
I promised my best friend that I wouldn’t meet the love of my life on this voyage because he probably would end up being from the middle of nowhere and I would have to move away and she would never see me. And I have been successful in keeping that promise thus far. Which I usually would think is impressive but with the kind of guy/girl ratio we are dealing with, there isn't all that much to work with in the first place.
But due to the acceleration of time I can tell that some of the friends that I am making will stick with me for a while. Which is comforting. I guess that means I am going to have two friends named Molly for the rest of my life. That's going to get really confusing.
Today I had a few heart to hearts, which is why I bring up this topic. They made my feelings swirl around a lot. I hate it when feelings swirl because they never seem to settle where I want them to. And it generally just leaves me more and more confused.
I think we are all confused on this ship. We are confused about how to get school work done, we are confused about what to eat because the food sucks, we are confused about how we feel about the country we just came from and about the one we are going to. We are confused about how to process news from the real world, either world news or personal news, because it just doesn't fit in with your here and now. We are confused about how we are going to integrate back into the real world when this experience is over. We are confused about how to go back to existing relationships and make those people understand what we experienced.We are confused about whether we should do things in order to make the most of our time here or if we should hold back and play it safe.
Our accelerated time is causing us to have to make decisions faster than ever. And it leaves our feelings swirling. And we don't know what to do. But there isn't enough time to stop and think, we have to keep moving forward. Do that assignment for class, book that hostel for the next country, meet that person for lunch. We don't have time to contemplate how the things we choose affect those around us. And we have no time to accept or regret the decision before we have to move on. And our feelings just keep swirling.
Can you tell mine are swirling right now?
