Ok. So here it is. I a sorry I haven’t shared anything in ages! I have literally 3 drafts in front of me but I do not know which one to post and none of them are « finished » to my opinion.

A lot of things happened this summer and I am realizing now at one week before the end of the summer season that…. It went extremely fast – as usual- and that I need to spend more time with the off going crew too.

I could start a small debrief of my summer. See what worked what didn’t; the goals I set myself professionally but also personally. Did I reach any? What have I achieved or not? Most of all did I have fun and have I made some people happy? That is all the essential maybe of all the questions I could ask myself.

One week  ago, the next group of students joined the vessel for 9 month in a row.

My last days of freedom, my last days of having a crew mess for crew only and not shared with 20 staff members. I know… small details but it does feel somehow like the Canadian invasion! Not in a bag way… but an invasion is still and invasion. You need to get used to it again. Your routines are suddenly a bit pushed and moved around and the first days people are more in the way till they also find their marks and new routines too. I must forgive them in advance.

Not so long ago, we were sailing with our last group of trainees of the summer. We were on the north sea. It was rainy and there was absolutely no wind in the beginning. All sails were set and we were slowly moving forward with the engine clutched in. The wind was going to pick up later in the night and we were going to be happily sailing all the way back to IJmuiden then Amsterdam only under sails. This is what we like. You know, when it is not cold and trainees are motivated. They have been asking so many questions and have been on time and are motivated for anything we had been doing. They gave energy which is good and our last trip of the year all together as a crew was in a nice atmosphere. We were just taking pictures together and trying to immortalize these last gatherings. Even though separation is soonish, we are a happy crew.

All this was coming to an end way to fast. Way earlier than what I was expecting. Too soon.

Why does time work like this? That moments are either too long or too fast? why? Who is up there making these moves and why?

Then ALLLL these questions starting flooding in my head.

I had been longing for these new students the whole month of June and now I am almost afraid of them. Who are they? The new crew. Let’s talk about them? All joining a new system, a new vessel and replacing others we have worked with, taken care of and had fun for the past months. How will these new ones will be?

I have spent weeks getting to know these great humans I have been working with. Will I ever see them again? Will I ever work with them again? This vessel? Another one? This side of the world? I do not know. Nobody knows. Was it worth it? All these efforts? All these efforts for such short term. Why do I do all this?

How can I handle all these changes all the time?

I know I will meet new persons and I will get to/ have to get to know them well while onboard. I will have to explain -once again- how the ship works. Explain -once again- without showing that sometimes I can be annoyed. Trying to be clear in my explanations and instructions but not overload too much – even though a vessel to handover is a huuuuge amount of work- and despite me talking too much…

How to do this once again with the best smile I can, trying not to show that sometimes I just want to go to bed or that questions get answered by themselves.

What is the difference between a short 2 days and a 9 month long sail training trip? In the end both experiences change peoples lives: they will remember it forever. And in both cases we do the same instruction and we handover the responsibilities to them to learn to work in a team and manage responsibilities and troubleshoot on different levels.

Why on earth do I do this???

Will I be able to survive once again a new full year of students, knowing in advance how heart broken I will be in May when they all depart from the vessel? Will I survive once again all these challenges I know we will encounter? Will I be able to trust myself to make the best of it? Take the best decisions possible for the community and the vessel? Will I be able to learn from my past mistakes and have these ones help me in my future decisions and standing strong where my weaknesses occur?

I need to look beyond and not only in the following days.

All the efforts that are put now into place are for a greater and better cause.

I need to remind myself these three following resolutions:

The first resolution: Choose to be who God wants you to be. – I honestly just know he want’s me to be Big Sophie, and I am still just a sophie….

The second resolution: Choose short-term pain for long-term gain.

And the third life-shaping resolution: if you have the choice, better chose God’s values, not our trendy world’s… 😉

Hebrews 11:26 says, “He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward” .

Moses made a value judgment. He clarified what mattered most to him.

What matters most in life? What would I want to matter most in life?

Integrity, humility, and generosity. 

These are important to me and living by them are a difficult task but I am confronted to them every day. It is only since I have started this blog; or maybe because I wanted to start it because I realized what we were doing here onboard.

Living on a vessel, in the middle of the ocean, with 79 other persons around you that trust you with their life when we are at sea. Trust you in the decisions you might take when sailing to keep them safe in an environment that can sometimes not be so friendly. Who am I to say I am stronger than the storms we will encounter? I am just a sophie.

These young people; my job; the people I work with. I try to give them everything I know when I first meet them.Everything I know about the vessel for them to feel comfortable in their living and working spaces. To feel at ease and safe. But I have myself everything to learn and from everything.

I try to give them what I have when possible: my time is the next step for those with who I will or will want to go further. Sometimes I do not want to but I just have to – if that makes sense?- and in the end, for those that will go beyond these to steps I will give everything, anything and and my entire « who I am ». I will be extremely dedicated. I know for my self that my expectations are pretty high that it is sometimes difficult for people to follow me. But some just manage to be just spot on and even beyond.

On an every day basis; to be honest, I think I am a selfish person. Or as selfish as another I guess? And I always feel guilty about it, when I want to spend time with people for example, because I would make time in my tight schedule for those I think who deserve it.

It ends up I can often feel alone or disappointed because I have the feeling I am giving giving giving always so much and that it never comes back. It is not true. It does come back but often at the moment we expect it the least or in the form we didn’t expect either.

Trust me. I know. I have been already so lucky. And I trust it does come back in one way or the other.

Living on the ship can be very difficult. There is no escape. You are who you are and you cannot hide. At one stage or the other you will be discovered for who you are. This is just the way it is. We all have our ups and downs and we can all be understanding, as much as we can for the others. But we are who we are. And I am just a sophie. again. For years, integrity has been a real life rule. You can only say what you so and what you do determines who you are if it is done with integrity. In such a small community, for so long, the real you pops out. There are no lies and no false. Integrity is a life rule. Trust, honesty and truth are all included in the term integrity. A high value that enable me to rely on myself and on others. I want others to be able to rely on me for anything and at any level need.

Why is this so important? Because if you don’t decide what’s important in your life, other people are going to decide for you. They’re going to push you into their mold. And you’re going to live your life by their values, not yours. It is my life, my choices, and I am actress of it. Only me can decide upon my actions.

And I do want people to rely on me. I am proud if some tell me I am a role model and that people look up to me. Even though I do not always understand how or why; If I am- because I am told I am- I need to push my values to the end, and I need to decide for myself to show all these young people that they are the actors of their lives and that with what they are given then can go far- whatever the « given » is- if they act with integrity, generosity and humility, ready to learn from anything.

Just to make sure. I am writing these words. But please understand that these values are absolutely not yet « acquired »!! I am totally still working on them.

Aspiring

to one day being able to live by them… I am still working on it and I believe for a long time still…

Working again again and again. And overcoming again again and again my failures.

Persevering.

But hey, nothing worthwhile is ever easy, right?

« Lets not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up » (galatians 6:9)

There are many things that work to keep us from completing our daily, temporary or permanent missions. 

I don’t know if the worst is when I push things again or further in time or if I just loose hope. (that happens so often!!) (I try to kick my butt very often by stepping outside of my Sophie brains and seeing the bigger picture and stop thinking and overthinking too much). The typical procrastination vs. discouragement. « Shall I push away or just quit? » « Am I made for this? » how many times I have asked myself these questions? Sometimes everything seems so difficult: leaving people we got to appreciate a lot, in two days, a few month or in a year: Colleagues who leave the vessel after 5 years, students who became close friends, crew who shared our daily watches more than 10 hours a day during easy days and tougher days.

Life can not be so easy sometimes.

But again and again, lets not get discouraged and start over with new crew, new colleagues, new students. Life is full of surprises also right around the corner.

«  Let’s not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up ».

Do you ever get tired of doing what’s right? I think we all do. Sometimes it seems easier to do the wrong thing than the right thing just because we are tired or done with things, fed up, but integrity and generosity come back when stepping out of the box.

When we’re discouraged, we become ineffective. When we’re discouraged we work against our own faith. When we’re discouraged , we’re saying « it can’t be done ». That’s the exact opposite of saying « I know God can do it because of what he said ».

Every time I am « assessing myself »: How do I handle failure? Can I take example on others on how they do? When things don’t go my way do I get grumpy? Do I get frustrated? Do I start complaining? Oh yeah…. totally. I try not to though. But unfortunately those who are the closest of me will know all my interior sophie dilemmas….

But I know my self now for somethings: I do finish what I start, and I do  persist and always try to reach the goal I have set myself. I know what I want and I am not a quitter. I refuse to be.

If you are discouraged don’t give up without a fight.

Nothing worthwhile ever happens without endurance and energy.

You have to continue hitting it and hitting it chipping away the rust, sanding and applying layers and layers of primer to have good base and a well maintained vessel.

And I guess that’s true of life too. Nothing really worthwhile ever comes easy in life. You keep hitting it and going after it, and little by little your life becomes a master piece.

The fact is that people are really just ordinary people with an extraordinary amount of determination. Great people don’t know how to quit.

I, just try my best not to. I still have quite some work to achieve for that. Sail training is not only me for the others but others for me.

Why on earth do I do all this?

Because if you would see these youngsters coming onboard and leaving the vessel; they are not the same anymore. A trip of 2 days as much as a trip of 9 month.

Because people grow, because we grow, because we are in the heart of what humans are and we have all of it: the difficult moments and the good moments.

Because the difficult ones lead to constructive moments, learning processes that end up being good moments. Because the results aren’t always immediate; the reward comes later and the reward is often spectacular.

Because even if it scares me, I do want to have my old small stone heart broken at the end of the year , at graduation in may, because it will mean that I would have given my best and all what I have and who I am. I will have given myself once again at the point that I will be crying so much for being separated and asking myself all these questions again.

That is me heart is broken it is because I am a human and I have feelings and that I care. 

And I hope I can say that I do care about each one of the students that has joined the vessel.

Cheers to my trainees and my colleagues!

This new coming school year is going to be a great one. again. I trust it and I know it. Why wouldn’t it applying all these life values?

This is our year. This is what we do and what we want. Lets give these young – and I am sure beautiful- young humans and spirits the best of what lie can teach them on the Gulden Leeuw.

Well that is a high aim but…

… I am ready for it.

Sophs ❤ ⚓