The real world

Current location: Childhood bedroom, 59°13’18’’N 18°13’31’’E Tyresö, Stockholm, Sweden

There are no words that do justice the peculiar feeling that strikes when one enters ‘the real world’ after three months working in the Caribbean, where most problems can be solved by hiding in the head secretly consuming unhealthy amounts of Nutella. Here, in the real world I go to the super market and look around bewildered by the fact that people are wearing shoes and putting in a serious effort to look good. I can’t even seem to remember the last time I looked at myself in the mirror and had a desire to adjust something about what I saw. I have been home for a complete set of three days and I am still not quite sure how I feel about it. Well mentally that is, I know exactly how my body feels. Physically I feel like I was hit by a bus and that my body is finally revolting against me after having had strict orders not to get sick for the past couple of months – there just wasn’t time for nonsense like that while working. So I am now sipping on my mint tea whilst ignoring my sniveling and running nose trying to make sense of what happened this summer. I told my boss during my checkout meeting, when he asked me how my summer was, that I needed some distance to it before I’d be able to know. Three days doesn’t seem to have changed that. But what I do know is that the experience I had was one of the most rewarding yet challenging experiences I have had in my entire life. The summers past when I have worked for ActionQuest my worries were always limited to my own students and my own boat and the problems that were limited to those individuals. This summer everyone’s problem landed beneath the scope of my responsibility and I didn’t expect the burden to be as heavy as it was. It wasn’t so much the extra hours that I needed to put into it but rather the challenge of maintaining a positive atmosphere amongst staff when things didn’t go as planned, and how to tell someone I needed them to start work at 6 am even though I knew it would suck for them. It broke my heart hearing them talking about me when they were displeased and thought I wasn’t listening. But I suppose that is what a leader is, someone who can stand strong and be the person who understands that even the best of people have to vent, and to be fair this summer was hard on all of the scuba staff working. They did such an amazing job with all the students and together we have probably certified over 300 scuba certifications. To make amazing stuff like that happen it is a small price to have to endure a few individuals being mad at me for a couple of hours. It makes me reflect on my first summer as staff. One night, I think it was in Mountain Point, I got furious with the dive director at the time. I jumped in my dinghy and drove over to his boat (Celestial Storm!) to tell him my piece. The rant lasted for about ten minutes, and I drove off less agitated than I had come. That was what I needed; I needed to yell at someone. Now, three years later, looking back at it, I couldn’t tell you why I got so angry with him. I have no idea. I remember being stressed and frustrated, but I don’t think that there was an actually good reason for me to be so angry with him. Now, look who is being yelled at – I guess life just went full circle on me! I think I’m going to stop writing my blog now and start writing Bobby an email.