Endings

Last night I couldn't sleep. It had suddenly dawned on me that my life is rapidly approaching a major change and the environment in which I have thrived over the last few years is about to be ripped away. And this got me to thinking about my past, my present and my future. What lies ahead, I wonder? Can I continue to grow once I am back in the real world? Because really, this place is a long, long way from reality.

During my time here in the sand, I have lived in a world where we are forcibly thrust together and have very little choice but to get along with each other. Those who fail to do so, don't last very long. And of course, the ever present risk only heightens our perceptions of the relationships that we form, giving us a false sense of closeness.

And sadly, I have realised that it is false. Not in the sense that we don't really care about each other, because we do. But it's false because once we are removed back to our home countries, it evaporates. Not deliberately, but through necessity. There is just no way for our loved one's who have not experienced this environment, how things are just so completely different here, to understand. I have made so many friends out here, from different walks of life and from countries spread across the world. But because of where we are and the reasons we are here, the relationships can only exist here.

How can a man explain to his wife that he has formed a strong friendship with another woman, without her feeling threatened by what they have shared? I'm not talking in any sexual sense of course, but when you have been forced together for six months or more, in a very close and sometimes dangerous environment, the links you form are different to those that you would develop in the real world. We depend on each other for so much more than just casual conversation. I have learned so much about the lives of the men and women I have met and spent time with out here, things that would not ordinarily be shared with those outside our family networks. Over the months, we spend hours talking about our lives, experiences and loved ones. It brings them closer to us all and helps us get through the day.

But I do not doubt for one second that only a few of them will return home and tell their wives and loved ones about me and my colleagues. In a way, I am more than a little jealous of my younger colleagues who tend to develop friendships with people their own age and by dint of that, people who do not have loved ones at home who would be threatened by the relationships. To be clear I am talking about spouses and partners.

What woman would feel comfortable meeting or hearing about another woman who has just spent six months out here with HER husband or boyfriend? How can that woman not feel some suspicion of what may have taken place? So the friendship is forsaken for the sake of a more important and enduring relationship, which leaves myself and my colleagues out in the cold.

I know many of my colleagues have committed as much of themselves to our role out here as I have and whilst I would not change it, it is painful to think that what we have given of ourselves will be locked away like some dirty little secret and on a personal level, we will be excluded from the lives of those we have grown to care about.