The End

变动.

This is the Chinese word for change. And walking off the ship for the last time, back into the real world, I realized I had changed. Physically, emotionally, spiritually- this trip had molded me into a new person in just under 4 months. I now knew what it meant to look poverty in the face and feel completely powerless to stop it. I knew what death smelled like and what real fear was. But I also found out what happiness was; what it feels like to stand on the edge of my future and not know what may lie ahead. Looking at the sunrise over Florida on that last morning, I didn't know exactly what these changes would mean for me in the months or years to come, but I knew that they would come- eventually.

I knew that the world I had left, what seemed like a lifetime ago, would now be different. Like an old pair of jeans that doesn't quite fit anymore. And I had thought that maybe the people who I'd known and loved for my entire life just wouldn't understand me anymore. On the ship, my friends and fellow shipmates really got me. They, too, knew what India smelled like, and how amazing a sunrise in South Africa was really like. The people at home....wouldn't. If I needed something on the ship, there was no doubt that someone would be there- only a few doors away. Whereas at home, communication has been reduced to e-mailing or texting each other. Our executive dean, Les McCabe, always quoted the Archbishop Desmond Tutu by saying, "Ubuntu", which roughly means "people are people through other people". I knew that the people I had met- Kelvin, the cab driver from South Africa; Samak, the orphan from Cambodia- had made me the person I have become today. Watching the ship pull into the last harbor, my new friends- no, my new family, stood there in silence not saying anything for fear of time running out. All feeling as though there was a rug under our feet being pulled out slowly, with no way to stop it. I, along with everyone else, was in denial of this chapter of our life coming to a close...fearful, excited, and anxious for what was to come. We all knew our lives would never be the same. How could they after this amazing journey? After our Semester at Sea.....