The Strange Dream

I used to have this recurring dream as a kid. It involved me waking up in the middle of the night, going to the living room where my parents were both still awake. I could sense that something wasn’t right about the situation, so I would ask my dad to open the curtains. When he opened them, there was a monster standing outside in the pitch black, right against the window staring directly at me. It scared the shit out of me. There, breathing up against the other side of the thin glass, was this unfamiliar being that not even my dad, whom I thought was the strongest in the world, could save me from. Being on the ship I sometimes feel a similar unfamiliar presence…

Clearly now I’m much older. I’ve been independent for a few years and I don’t run to my parents whenever I have a problem, but sometimes I just don’t know what to do. I had a rough day today. This job is not what I thought it would be. There it is… I’ve said it.

I was seriously spoiled when I worked at the university. It was an amazing job. They pay was great, the people were great, and I felt a sense that what I was doing was actually important. The only thing this job has in common with my past job is the part about the people being great.

I couldn’t find a job at home after the funding ran out at UBC. Despite the fact that they would have hired me back if they could have… I was stuck without a job for two months. I looked every day, I sent e-mails, and I still had trouble. The strange thing about it is that I was still making more money at home living on unemployment insurance and working the odd gig once or twice a week than I am on this ship. For some strange reason I decided to go on what I thought would be an adventure.

There is really nothing that adventurous about this job at all. The most exciting part of it is just being somewhere other than home, and I’ve actually enjoyed the lifestyle of the ship quite a bit. The actual work part of the job is what makes it difficult. I work between 9 and 13 hours a day 7 days a week. And for the most part I feel like an actress with a camera. I really do enjoy acting, and I do love photography with every fiber in my body, but this combination of the two is fucking deadly…

Tonight I needed a breath of fresh air, so I went outside and watched the wake the side of the ship was creating as it pushed on. When I looked up all I could see was black. There was no differentiation between the sky and the ocean at all. No moonlight. The bleakness brought back this feeling that I haven’t felt in years, of a strange empty presence staring me in the face, and here I am… all alone, unsure of what I’m doing.

• January 20, 2010
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