If you haven’t read February 15 yet, you can do so here.

If you stumbled onto this post by accident and haven’t read any of the other stories, head over to this post to find out more about this project.

Gabi had never excelled at stillness. In her childhood it was running off to play one sport or another, either with her brothers or at school. In high school, she’d crammed her schedule with so many after school activities and commitments that she would get home do a little homework and slide into bed. That hadn’t changed much in college where she’d worked close to full time hours while doing a full college workload. Once she found herself in the real world it was dinner dates, gym classes, work, and parties. Even if her body was still, her mind never joined it. 

She had never considered that to be a bad thing. Gabi prided herself on her efficiency and productivity, there was always something to be done, and she could do it. Would do it.

Aboard Pride 365 there was nothing to get done. 

With nothing to occupy her thoughts, Gabi found she could achieve a kind of quiet and stillness that she’d never managed at home. She supposed that what she was doing was meditation but all sounded a bit woo woo for her. Gabi chose not to label whatever she was doing.

In the days at sea she found herself losing track of time. She would sit down on her balcony with a cup of tea in the morning only to find it was suddenly late afternoon and her tea was freezing. 

She didn’t think about anything in particular, nor was she really aware what, if anything, she thought about during those times. What she did know was that a kind of peacefulness settled over her as sat, a clarity about the world.

The sound of the waves slamming against the ship, the occasional bird chirping in the distance, voices chattering on their own balconies. She was a part of that. Every so often she imagined the creatures deep beneath the ocean living in a world she couldn’t comprehend in any meaningful way. So deep, so dark. Some of them would never see sunlight in their lifetimes, that was how big the world was. 

Gabi came out of her thoughts, when she sat down it was lunchtime, night had fallen, little lights along the ship barely lit the ocean below. Tears dripped down her cheeks and onto her shirt. The things she did mattered, far more than she’d ever realized. She was small compared to the world, but not insignificant. 

You can read February 17 here.

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