This Beach

Strolling along the beach, I have the sudden recognition that I was also on a beach this time last year.  It was under very different circumstances.  I was very much in love and it wasn’t too long after that trip I had my heart broken for the first time.  It was my first time to really open my heart and love someone with every inch of my being.  We loved with everything we had and it wasn't enough.  As exquisite as the love was, the pain of the end was equally exquisite.  It was excruciating.  I spent the majority of 2012 putting the pieces of my heart and myself back together. 

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My parents met and fell in love here … I can see why and I can imagine them on this delightfully perfect beach. I’ve long imagined them in their youth strolling hand in hand, without a care in the world, spending their days tangled in each other’s arms on a - this beach. They have a beautiful relationship and it’s fun for me to think about what it must have been like when they first met. The hotel where they met each other burned down shortly after they left but the sign still remains.  Ironically, I’m staying right across the street from it so every day when I take my walks, I see it and it’s a very comforting sight for me.  It’s like a part of them remains on the island and is a poignant visual reminder of how very strong and deep the love they have for each other is.  Just as the sign survived the fire, so have they survived fires of their own.

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Growing up I took the strength of their relationship for granted.  It’s once I entered my 20’s I realized how rare it is for two people to meet at such a young age and not only stay together but fall even more deeply in love despite the passage of time and extremely difficult challenges.  To be friends and companions.  To laugh every day together.  The depth of their commitment has always been obvious: every evening that I can remember my mom has jumped up to greet my dad with a hug and kiss when he gets home from work.  She didn’t and doesn’t have to say why – I know I’d prefer to go home to someone thrilled to see me versus an empty house or someone with a litany of demands.  She also doesn’t have to tell me that there were probably days she didn’t feel like it and did it anyways.  Probably days they’d had an argument or going through a tough time.  Maybe she was tired.  She would turn down invitations if they interfered with her being home to greet my dad.  As a child and teenager it bothered me and now I have so much respect for her commitment to this small and simple act.  And when my mom gets up from the dinner table, my dad says things like, “isn’t that the most beautiful woman you’ve ever seen?”  He plays with her and teases her.  He touches her.  And after 37 years the look I see in my dad’s eyes when he looks at my mom is the way I hope someone one day looks at me.

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I say I spent 2012 putting the pieces of myself back together but the truth is I have found myself in a new shape altogether.  Maybe I wasn’t quite whole before.  Maybe I never was.  I am now and that is an exquisite thing to be able to say.