Final Thoughts

Kathy's Final Thoughts
Well, this is interesting. Anyway, you know who I am, and here I am talking to everyone about what this experience was like. You know, I have been here for 38 days and I've been trying to come up with all the words to encapsulate what this is all about. You could use every word in the dictionary - from great to terrific to incredible highs to incredible lows to life-altering experience, which it will be to me. I'll get into that a little later. But what's totally uncanny is that 16 total strangers, 16 total American strangers, hit this island - and this island is definitely prehistoric - here we were, total strangers, and the first thing off the bat we're working as a team and we're successfully getting everything done, from shelter to fire to breakfast, lunch, dinner-which is minimal and it takes so long to forage-we did it as a team. It was remarkable. And not only that. It was done with positive attitudes, integrity, honesty - well, that might have been a little shaky at times - but the attitude was just hard-working work ethics, and success was always at the pinnacle of everyone's mindset. So all 16 people that came to this island are a success. Totally.

And then the other element of this that I totally enjoyed were the wins. On the Rotu tribe, the wins were awesome. To be able to feel that experience, to be in the center of the universe and the crowd, to throw up our hands and win, cause I never won a blooming thing. It was terrific. And even going over to Miraamu, when it was just Paschal and the girls, and then we won. It felt terrific. So I hold all that dear to my heart - success with strangers, and the wins-but the most important thing that's happened to me is the fact that I opened up to these people and these people opened up to me. And I realize that back at my workplace and around friends, maybe on the outer rim, I don't peel my layers down to show them who I am, and I'm going to go back to the States and I'm going to do that. I'm going to change my life by going and asking people what their soul's all about or even just talking to them and making sure they're okay. Even people at my work.

So those are the lessons you learn here on SURVIVOR, more so than the survival skills, even though that was tremendous. But you know you always adapt to your environment if you're going to make it, so it's the relationships and how you can improve upon them that I'm taking away.

Last but not least is this island. The Marquesas are beautiful. There is a civilization that was here once. It's gone and it was 1500 years ago and there were paepaes and an incredible jungle here. It's really primeval and beautiful at the same time.