Kristen - 7/17/09
I didn't know what time it was; we weren't allowed to bring our watches with us. The unfamiliar feeling of having a naked wrist made me constantly feel like something was missing, like maybe I forgot to put my pants on that morning. I craved to know what time it was. I wanted to know exactly how long I had been suffering. All I knew that I was tired, the sun had set, and we were not yet at the place where we wanted to set our anchor. I was rowing, and had been for a couple of hours. We tried to stay positive, but it was hard. We told jokes and riddles and tried to keep our mind off the work at hand while we rowed by the light of the moon.
The blisters on my hands screamed for relief. My stomach grumbled with hunger since we had not yet eaten dinner. My eyes fought to stay open. My legs were getting sore from being jammed between two buckets for hours. But I kept rowing.
We decided it was time to make dinner. The navigators set the stove up and quietly made us grilled cheese. They passed them around and we ate them while we rowed. Water splashed over the side of the boat and got my sandwich wet, but we kept going.
We decided to turn around and head back to where we had come from. The crew moaned as we spun the boat around. We had worked so hard, and now it was all for nothing. While some still groaned, others, including myself, got a new wave of energy. We began to sing and row faster. We got excited to go to sleep and we could all finally see our destination. We rowed faster. "Stroke! Stroke!" someone called out as we all began to row out of sync.
We finally made it to the cove and dropped the anchor. We set up our beds faster than ever before and climbed into bed. I was on watch for the first shift and had to stay up later and keep the boat safe. I sat on top of the place where the anchor usually was and stared up at the sky. The moon was bright and stars filled the sky. I had a watch in my hand so I'd know when my shift was over, but I didn't want to know what time it was anymore; that'd be cheating. I took out my journal and documented my hard day. "We rowed and rowed... and rowed. It hurt. But you didn't quit. Congrats," I scribbled across the page. I continued to document the rest of the day: the singing, the laughing, and everything inbetween. At the bottom of the page I wrote the five words that changed my persepctive of everything: "It was all worth it."
At the end of the day, I didn't care about how much my hands hurt or how hungry I was. That didn't matter anymore. All I cared about was that I made it to the end of the day. I was proud of myself for not asking for someone to take my place and instead taking the job of bow watch. I was content that I didn't complain. I had made it to the end of the day, and it was all worth it. Everything is always worth it, and all it took was one long day of rowing in the Boston Harbor to show me that.
