The Mid-Cruise Slump

March 11, 2012

Given all the energy with which I burst onto the Celebrity scene, the warnings I received rolled quickly off my back. This fearsome foe for those who work at sea seemed no more real to me than the Kracken. But this nemesis proves consistently to be more real and far more of a threat than any mythological creature of the deep.

The Mid-Cruise Slump refers to the predictable bout of lethargy and depression that affects virtually every crew member in the weeks centered on the midpoint of their contract. I had watched it occur in others. You remember my earlier story of Jess, the I-95 Cleaner? His was a predictable case of mid-cruise slump and I remember how day-by-day he came out of that slump and slowly regained the energy and the spirit to complete his contract with high spirits. Yet, given the connection that I immediately felt to this job, the affirmation I have felt from the crew, and the reserves of energy I had when I started, I never expected it to happen to me.

Of course, it did. Just under two months into my contract I found my boundless energy limited at the edges, harder to engage in the morning, more difficult to keep at the end of the day. Many mornings I found myself wanting nothing more than to turn over and go back to sleep. The first conscious thought was a quick calculation of the number of days completed and the number of days left. My lower back, the most accurate barometer of my state of mind grew tight and painful. I have always chosen to walk the stairs instead of taking the lifts, but some days each step climbed seemed to take all the spring out of my legs. I clearly had hit my slump. Too far from the start to have the freshness of vacation and too far from the end to be motivated by the chance to return home for awhile, it reminds me of hitting the wall in a marathon.  

What does it take to climb the other side of the valley? There is only one cure and that is time. With each passing day, you draw closer to the point when the number of days behind you is greater than those remaining. Pretty soon you start to make plans for how you will spend your days on land, the people you will visit and the things you will do. When I conduct the Sign Off meetings for those who are leaving at the end of a cruise, I will start to project myself into their place. Plans will be made to hand over my position for two months to my vacation replacement. And probably faster than I will expect, I will be walking down that gangway celebrating a contract successfully completed.

This feeling does not represent a desire to be doing something else, but reflects the reality of running a marathon at a sprinter’s pace. I believe that when I walk down that gangway, I will look back up at Silhouette and begin counting the days until I return to the greetings of my new friends and acquaintances. It is that acknowledgment that reminds me that this current feeling is only a slump. It is the necessary cycle that accompanies this phenomenal experience. It will happen on my next contract, and the one after that, perhaps for many more years to come.

And the adventure continues . . .