Groundhog Day / ɡraʊnd.hɑːɡ ˌdeɪ / noun ~ ‘A situation in which events that have happened before happen again, in what seems to be exactly the same way.’
Day 31 on the Atlantic Ocean
This week I feel enslaved in the execution of monotonous routines. The food, the heat, the blue, the boat, the relentless task of rowing... every day the same repetition of the one before.
Why am I here? Is this a validation crusade? I’m here for the cause, for our campaign, for all the girls and women to come after us. For all our sponsors, friends, and family who invested so much in us. But there’s a piece of me too that's here for me. I’m lost inside. Am I searching for acceptance? From who? Myself? Who really am I? What is my purpose? Am I a better person for being here? Am I even good enough to be here? My mind is wandering and wondering; thoughts circling endlessly in my head as I row today, eating me up inside.
There is no respite.
We wake and we row, we eat and we row, we talk and we row; then silence. We suffer the heat, burning, unabating heat. We endure the salty damp that blisters our battered bodies. We spend our days in a perpetual state of exhaustion, locked in our pursuit for purpose and meaning, which we glimpse, but can't quite grasp, maybe until we stop. But we can’t stop until it is over. There is no giving up, we keep moving. Day in, day out. We wake and we row, we eat and we row, we talk and we row.
Same again tomorrow.
Groundhog Day.
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