Last full day at sea. Tomorrow we’re in port, then an airport, then home.
And I have to admit something I’ve never once been able to say at the end of one of these.
I’m ready to go.
Every other cruise I’ve taken has ended with me dragging my feet up the gangway. The last day was always a countdown to reentry — back to the bills, the yard, dinner that doesn’t cook itself, the whole apparatus of being responsible for things.
Out here I got to be free and easy for a week. No clock. Nothing I had to achieve that I didn’t want to.
I have loved it. I’ve eaten more than I needed to and enjoyed every bite. Desserts. A couple of very good wines. Places I’ve never been. A whole lot of time staring at water, which I’ll be doing again in about an hour.
And I still want to go home.
What’s different is that there’s something waiting that I actually want.
I’ve spent this year working harder than I’ve worked in a long time, on purpose, on things that are mine. Which means home isn’t a pile of obligations this time. It’s a set of things I’m in the middle of and want to get back into the middle of.
I’m in the gym Sunday with my son. Monday morning I’ll get coffee, sit down, and start digging through what I’d conservatively estimate is five thousand emails. Then follow-ups with my team on what moved while I was gone, and figuring out what the next project needs from me.
None of that sounds like dread when I say it out loud. It sounds like Monday, and I’d like to get at it.
I’m not naive about how fast this turns.
It’ll be a grind again inside of two weeks. There will be a list, and deadlines, and people who needed something from me before I got back to my desk, and bills, and all the ordinary weight of a life. Restored is a temporary condition.
The stairs on this ship have also made a point I didn’t ask them to make. I’m in decent shape. I’m not in the shape I want. Something to work on.
Here’s the thing I keep coming back to, though.
I brought my mid-year review with me. I’ve been saying all week I’d open it on the last sea day, block out a couple of hours, sit somewhere quiet and figure out the back half of the year.
I never opened it.
My son wanted to do trivia in the theater. Then karaoke, where he got up and sang How to Save a Life and absolutely leveled the room — this kid who started out with an untrained ear, standing up in front of strangers and just owning it. I watched him meet people all week and turn into somebody more outgoing than I’ve ever seen him.
The review will still be there Sunday afternoon. It has kept for six weeks; it’ll keep two more days.
I would not trade one hour of that theater for it.
David Willis 