I didn't expect it to be like this. I didn't expect I would be like this. I didn't expect to become part of the metal of this place. To feel like the bulldozer or the forklift: working long hours, repeating the same task over and over and over, paint peeling, gears gnashing, tires deflated, attempting to conquer the frozen and unforgiving volcanic rock pile that is Antarctica.
And yet.
I didn't expect to find such peace. To experience such profound and unimaginable beauty. To face and overcome so many fears and plow through my comfort levels without giving in to emotion. I didn't expect to be pushed to the brink day after day after day and still be able to smile. I didn't expect to live so much. To revel in silence. A cold silence that is even more silent than you might imagine. I didn't expect to love and hate people so much. I didn't expect to learn so much about myself.
My feet move without me having to tell them to and somehow, despite my fatigue, my protesting shins, my frozen toes and my barely awake brain, I exist. The beauty of this place is not only in the exceptional views or the majestic nuances of nature, but in everything that is wrong. The pure and simple elegance of chaos. Of tangled and confused human relationships, of biological warfare, of mental instability. And, of course, of potential. Antarctica has helped me define what I am capable of.
Every day I am surprised by someone and disappointed by someone else. I am surprised by myself and disappointed in myself. I wonder how this place has changed me and how I have changed this place. As Benjamin Franklin said, "Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” In this way, Antarctica is teaching me to be involved in my own life. I am not who I am, what I do or how I relate to others. I just am. And I am here. I am alive!
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