Sea Day

January 6, 2014
I admit, it’s not easy being away from home for so long. It’s a strange life I lead; when I’m home, after the first few weeks when I’ve finally gotten to spend time with my family and some friends, I’m more than ready to head out to sea, and then there are days like this at sea when all I want to be is home, getting hugs from my family and dogs and not having the stresses of living with the same people you work with and see most every part of every day.

As easy and amazing as I usually make my life sound, I have to admit that it isn’t always so. I struggle with a lot of things. Sharing a room with someone I work with, or not having a roommate at all and being very lonely for it. I struggle with being social when I know I need it but am just feeling so anti-social that it’s all I can do to go to the OB and sit there hoping someone will make an effort to include me because I’m not feeling secure enough at the time to get involved in conversations of my own accord. Nights like that come along more often when I have my own room, but only if I manage to convince myself to go out and talk to people instead of sitting on my bed watching a movie.

I struggle with keeping up with my land-locked friends. Sometimes I get the feeling that I’m “out-of-sight, out-of mind.” Sometimes I try so hard to keep in touch with people that when they don’t respond in a timely manner (Internet is available most all the time and is easily accessible on land! So, it shouldn’t be difficult to send a “hi, I’m good. How are you” to me) I get frustrated and give up for a while. Even with this blog, I try to make sure to write something about every day, but when I know about half my friends don’t keep up with it, and few people mention anything I’ve talked about in it. Sometimes it’s hard to keep going with it, I don’t know what in particular anyone may want to hear about, I feel now like I’m just starting to repeat everything I’m saying anyway, it takes up internet time (thus money) to post if I’m on the ship, and it takes some time to type all this out. I’m not giving it up of course, but if I don’t seem to post as often as I used to, this is probably why.

And then there’s the faith aspect. Most people on this ship know I’m a Christian, I’m a rare category of crew member and it’s very obvious if anyone watches me, listens to me, or pays a bit of attention to how I life. But it’s not easy. Because those of us who actively live out our faith are so rare around here, we have to be extremely careful and vigilant. It’s hard to find others to fellowship with, it’s easy to get caught up in the daily grind and collapse into bed at the end of a day without reading the devotional you placed on the shelf above your head so you wouldn’t forget. Praying has always been easy for me to remember to do, but on the random day here I may find myself climbing into bed and realizing that I haven’t talked to my Father all day. It doesn’t happen too often, but it happens enough that I’m not happy about it. Thank you Mom for all the church music every Sunday! Mondays have become my Sundays because I can take the afternoon to sit and listen and read my Bible. :)