A community of love.

Today, for the first time in a while, I felt that sense of community that this ship is capable of having.

The first instance was during my family dinner. I'm not sure if I've explained this before, but we sign up for "extended families" on the ship, which means that you're assigned ship board parents and siblings. Let me say, my family is pretty fucking boss. Since today is the day before Thanksgiving, there was a proper meal served, and my family and I gathered with two other families and had a nice meal together. It was SO nice. I love my family meals, we swap a bunch of great stories and get to know each other so well, and it's an awesome way to get to know people you don't really run into otherwise. It made me feel SO at home.

The second was during "A night of Expression", a talent show event put on my LAMDA and my dear friend Adam. It was in celebration of Pride Day which was yesterday. I chose to perform a monologue from the play "Like Dreaming, Backwards", which is a monologue I've been working on for about 9 months now. (I guess you could call it my baby). The monologue is about a young girl who is suicidal, and she is telling bits and pieces of her story. Now, there are certain aspects of the piece that relate to my life, but it is absolutely not a piece ABOUT my life. After the show, I had a lot of people coming up to me and telling me that I'm brave and courageous and that they would be there to talk. At first, I thought it was really awesome that everyone thought my monologue was so good! The I discovered through my friend Chris that most people thought the piece was written by ME, about MY life. So essentially... the whole ship thought I was suicidal. Oh shit. So I went around to the people who had offered me support and told them I am, in fact, not suicidal... perhaps one of the happiest people you'll ever meet, in fact. Everyone was INCREDIBLY relieved.

It made me realize something. There are some days where I get really sad on this ship, and I think that there's no one here who really, truly cares about me. I sit in my room and wallow in self pity. Tonight made me realize that after 3 short months, there are people here who give a shit about who I am. There are people here who love me. There are people here who have experienced the things I've experienced, and they're here to talk and tell me everything is ok. It's absolutely the most amazing thing to realize... that people you didn't know a few months ago care about your life and your well being. It put me in an absolutely amazing mood, and I feel so incredibly blessed to have met the people I've met on this trip, especially the people who don't give off a caring vibe.

The most important lesson I'm taking away from this thus far is not to judge people based on the way they come off. I know we've all heard it before, but there are some people I've met on this trip that I would have NEVER hung out with back home. Our paths wouldn't have crossed. And they did, and I am so BEYOND lucky to have them in my life, even the people who I occasionally talk to or hang out with.

I'm just really, really happy right now.