Write about the beach: Your favorite memory of a trip, what you love, what you hate. Would you live on the coast if you could, or is it better just for a visit?
I never knew you had to exfoliate your feet when I was younger. The reason is that I spent so much time at the beach that the sand took care of it for me. Growing up I was blonde with dark roots, tanned for as much as a pale girl could get. When I would sweat, I smelled like ocean water. I was as close as I could to being a mermaid.
In college, everything changed. Growing up, I could go to the beach for free. The idea of paying for parking was, and still is, ridiculous. In Boca, they had very limited free parking. Now I had to have money to go to the beach. The beach was supposed to be the only place I could go when I was broke. Where I didn’t feel pressured into spending money. Instead of going to surf or hang out with friends like I did in my youth, most of the people now wanted to drink. Sometimes they would play games. However, something was just different. A trip to the beach was just a side stop in the day instead of being the whole day. Going to the beach felt more like a chore than it did as a relaxing escape from life.
When I moved to the mountains of Brazil, I realized how much I missed living near the ocean. Even though I spent less time at the beach, the option was always there. But in the mountains, I was five hours away from the closest beach. It felt like someone took a part of my soul, knowing I couldn’t escape there whenever I wanted.
My stint in Brazil was short and the first place my best friend took me after landing was the beach. During the flight, I knew my marriage was over. I had not wanted to admit it to myself, but sitting there watching the waves break on the shore, I could focus on everything that happened on my sixth month journey. There is just something about the sun and sand that washes away the pain.
While I was adjusting to my life back home, I took advantage of going to the beach every day. It was fall, and the air was crisp. The waves were building and even though I had part of my life out of storage, I never picked up my surfboards. I would sit on the sand and write. My friends and I would head to the beach at night. Running around in the shore break. Some nights, we were crazy enough to swim with the sharks. Not actually with them, but growing up in Florida, you knew the sharks were more active at night.
Autumn at the beach has become my favorite time of year. It rejuvenates my soul and fills me with hope. While most people are mourning the loss of warmer weather, I relish in the cool breeze. The biggest reason behind this is autumn at the beach is the first time my husband kissed me. We had been spending more time together. One evening we were sitting near the pier at sunset talking. Eventually, we were both quiet. You could feel the tension. Out of nowhere he asked, “Can I kiss you?” and I laughed, saying, “Don’t ask, just do it.”
Today I took the first step in actively working on my mental health. I had an hour-long session with a therapist. This isn’t my first time with therapy. The last time I sought help was to deal with my postpartum depression and anger. However, that ended quickly after the therapist said to me, “have you ever been to therapy before? Bec” Because this isn’t how it works.” The woman said, after I bared my soul… That may have been word vomit of emotions and feelings, but she wasn’t correcting me, just being rude.
Even though I had an awful experience with therapy, I have always suggested it to family, friends, and my students. My husband is alive because I pushed him to speak to those are the VA who were trained in his combat related PTSD. I have guided more than a handful of students into either talking with a guidance counselor or a mental health specialist. Even my own little clone is in therapy, learning how to handle her massive emotions. So when my husband told me I needed to get help, I didn’t fight him. I didn’t want to do it, but I did it. I would hate myself forever if I always suggested those to seek help while I became lost within myself.
Somehow I got lucky. My new therapist seems wonderful. She has a kind voice, and she genuinely seemed engaged when I spoke about the things I’ve lived through. I can’t explain why I went with the first therapist I contacted, but a tiny voice inside me said, “this one.” When she asked me to fill out the pre paperwork, she asked if I had any trauma. In that millisecond, I finally stopped running and decided I didn’t need to be strong. I said “yes.”
While I have documented my sexual assault by my boss on here before, I have lived through a lot of other extremely dark things. Situations that I don’t feel comfortable putting out in the world, I will say this: I’m essentially a statistic for many things that can go horribly wrong to a female.
One thing she was gauging me on was to see if I may suffer from PTSD because my scores were pushing me there. However, that I don’t avoid situations that have caused me trauma means I don’t qualify. Part of me didn’t like that response because, for most of my trauma, there’s no way to avoid it. As I keep finding out, Jupiter/Gardens is a small ass town and the only way to avoid being triggered would be to move.
But fuck that. I’m not leaving my hometown. This is the place I’ve always wanted to raise my kids. It’s a wonderful community offering more in one location than any other community I’ve lived in. Another reason I throw my middle finger in the air at the idea of avoiding things is that I won’t be the victim. I am stronger than that. Those people who have bruised my soul will not now or ever win.
After an hour of jumping around and explaining pieces of myself to this woman with a trusting voice, I felt drained. However, even though we didn’t dive that much into the crap burdening my soul, I felt a small sense of relief. One that I can only hope will grow.
While many see spring break as a chance to travel and go on adventures, I took it as an opportunity to have downtime with my family. I’ve not so secretly loved knowing there were riptides at the beach and that Adelyn isn’t the best swimmer. It’s allowed me to stay home and enjoy doing nothing without the guilt.
This break from our busy schedules has allowed me the ability to catch up on neglected housework. Though I’m not where I want to be, I have cleaned the bathrooms and gone through the mail. The stockpile of mail has been taunting me since November. I hate opening mail. It tends to be bills and nothing fun.
Aside from housework, I have spent a lot of time sitting on the floor with my tiny raptor. Bennett has become very vocal and produces new and interesting sounds. Most of them come from being disgruntled that he can’t move where he wants to yet. Although today has been a major milestone, he has rolled over six times in a row. All while yelling at me.
This time at home has also let me focus on my writing. I didn’t know how well I’d be able to keep up with my lent writing challenge, but every day I wrote something new. Now I may not complete it on the day I created the post, but I do at least start it. There was a day this week when I pushed out three new posts. I’m still grinding away at posts 11 and 12. They are the most complicated for me to write. I have to capture emotions and feelings from the past while not making the post extra flowery and taking away from the truth of the story.
Adelyn has been enjoying the one and one time too. She told me the other day that she is sad I have to spend all my time with the baby. I had worried about this when I was pregnant, and now she was vocalizing it. However, by being home and actively being able to put the baby down for a nap, I can focus my time on her. We’ve read books, made cupcakes, and snuggled on the couch watching her favorite shows. During the week, I spend a lot of individual time with her. But she doesn’t see it that way. She’s five, and it doesn’t process the same as an adult. But when she sees me putting her brother down for a nap and me coming to spend time with her, it makes her happy.
One of my favorite thing about being home this week is tormenting my husband. I know he thoroughly enjoys me being here with no true task to do. This leaves me with all the freedom in the world to demand his attention while he works. Being a stage five clinger is just one perk he gained when he married me.
All joking aside, I have loved the time he and I have been able to have. Usually, we see each other for a few hours a day, most of them on a ball field. But there were only two practices this week; the rest of the week has been free of baseball responsibilities.
Last night was probably my favorite night of the entire week. While Mr. Bennett refused to go to sleep, Tyler and I started playing “name that song.” It wasn’t something we planned on doing; it just happened. He had his Spotify app open and random tunes played. Sometimes I knew the song on the first note, and there were other times when I had to wait until the lyrics started. We did this for probably two hours. Switching from song to song, talking about memories they evoked, or making us look up different things about the bands. The night was perfect.
As we went back and forth, naming the bands and songs, I couldn’t help but think about how happy I was. This was all I’ve ever wanted out of life, to feel complete with my partner. To be comfortable in our own space and enjoy each other company. We didn’t have to do anything extravagant. Peace and simplicity tend to be undervalued. I love how comfortable Tyler and I are with each other. How easy our conversations are. Even after driving him insane from the moment I wake until he goes to bed, we always have something to talk about or share. Would it have been nice to go on vacation this spring break? Of course, it would have. I am always up for a new adventure. But if we weren’t home, there would have been so many natural moments that would have been missed.
I started writing this prompt a year ago during lent, and they revisited the prompt today. So I figured I would finish this.
I’m not entirely sure if I believe in fate and destiny in the sense of predestination, but I think we have the option of different choices and paths to take, and those paths shape us.
Sometimes when my husband smiles, I see glimpses of the past. He’ll get the same spark in his eyes that he had almost twenty years ago. Something that I thought he lost after the hard road he has traveled to get us to where we are now.
My husband, Tyler and I met in high school. He was a senior, and I was a freshman. As fate would have it, the school district decided that his four years of JROTC would no longer count as an art elective. Now, in his last year of school, Tyler had to choose between band, art, or drama. He picked drama since he couldn’t draw or play an instrument.
At the beginning of the year, my drama class was around 16 girls and one boy, Dan Mosley. I think he lasted a week before he had his schedule changed. For a short time, we were an unruly group of girls before a tall, dark stranger was sitting at the desk behind mine.
Truth be told, I am naturally shy, so I do not know how I began talking to him. Especially so since I thought he was cute, and usually, when I think someone is attractive, my mouth does not work. However, with him, it was like word vomit. Maybe because I was in a room full of females and we outnumbered him. Or possibly the idea of him being so much older than I was; I saw no threat. Whatever the reason was, we became friends. Some days he sat at the desk to the right of me, and we would talk, and other days he would sit behind me and play with my hair that covered his desk.
Looking back at our life, it reads like a Young Adult novel. Of course, my real-life crush just so happens to be the definition of a book boyfriend. I laugh because I’ve seen a meme, “Fictional men raised my standards.’ Girl, your only requirements are dark hair and trauma.'” However, when I first met my husband, he only had dark hair. It wasn’t until after two deployments did he gain the trauma.
Tyler’s transfer to our class took place early in the year. I know this because our generation is marked by one life-changing event: 9/11.
Before that tragic day, the weeks were blurred together. The only thing I vividly remember from the month of August is the tall, good-looking guy with a crooked smile invading our girls only drama class.
On that morning, I can remember practically every detail. I was in my Spanish two class, where every moment was forgettable until someone rushed into the room. The person shouted at my teacher to put on the news. The entire class turned their attention to the tv. Students were talking amongst themselves as my teacher frantically tried to call her daughter. She lived in NYC. My classmates and I watched, and I began arguing with anyone that would listen. I grew up around planes my whole life. The anchors kept saying that a small Cessna flew into the first tower. I knew that was impossible to be true. The plane wouldn’t look the way it did if it was a Cessna. As the anchors tried to make sense of the situation that was going on, a second plane flew into the tower’s twin. At that moment, I stopped talking. The world froze, and everyone had a single thought: we are under attack. As I digested what I had just witnessed, another thought filled my mind: The guy I had a crush on was going to war.
One thing that attracted me to my future husband was his enlistment in the army. Growing up with my family serving in all branches except for the navy, I found his dedication to our country attractive. And discovering that he enlisted the summer before he was eighteen just made it that much better. But when he enlisted, we were at peace.
An announcement came across the loudspeaker, and we were told that they would dismiss us from our last-period class. I am sure I was a part of the few people who were eager to move. My last period was drama, which meant I would see Tyler and talk to him about everything that happened. The entire class sat on the floor in front of the tv. I remember leaning against him and asking him what he thought was going to happen. He may have looked at me, but I was too focused on the news coverage. I just heard him say, “I guess I’m going to war.”
Two weeks passed, and so did his eighteenth birthday. I don’t know why these memories have stuck with me, but they have. He went skydiving with his mom and got the Sky Dive America’s Uncle Sam tattoo on his shoulder.
So now the guy I had a crush on had a tattoo, jumped from a plane, and was going to war. All he needed was a motorcycle to complete the bad boy package. But Tyler was anything but that. We’ve talked about high school, and he said he never really was one of those people who hung out with one group. He was friends with everyone. He played sports, was a part of JROTC, and didn’t care who you were as long as you weren’t a dick.
At the beginning of December, I chopped off all my hair. It was a rebellious move because my mom loved my long hair, and I was mad that I didn’t get to go to the Buzz Bake Sale. The Bake Sale was a local rock concert festival. I know it was a ridiculous fifteen-year-old move, but that was all I could control.
When I went to school that Monday, I wasn’t comfortable with my decision anymore. My hair was like a comfort blanket. The longest point reached my butt, and I had chopped it up to my ears. When I sat down in my seat, I felt a pencil swatting at my hair. “I like the hair, little one,”
Suddenly, I didn’t hate my hair anymore.
As the school year progressed, Tyler started taking another classmate and me home from school. That meant I no longer had to take the bus home every other day and since he drove a ford ranger with a bench seat in the front, I sat in the middle. At first, he would simply drop me off at my place, but as we got closer, we spent time together, discussing stupid things. It didn’t matter if it was about class that day, and how life was going, or music we liked. Our conversations were how I learned he only didn’t just enjoy country music. He liked the same pop-punk nonsense as I did.
One day, he came into class and plopped down in his seat. He didn’t have the same positive attitude as usual, and I asked him what was wrong. He said he got in trouble with his mom for going over his text message limit again. I turned bright red and asked, “well, who are you texting?” he just laughed and said, “Gee, I wonder who’s been texting me every day.” I might have been part of the reason he had to get unlimited text messages.
We would play twenty questions, however, those twenty questions would somehow last well into the night. It was fun getting to know someone this way. It felt more like we were sending letters as opposed to text messages, and it took the pressure off taking him face-to-face when I saw him the next day.
The closer we came to the end of the school year, the sadder I got. He was going to graduate and go off to the army, and I was going to continue on with my life as if he had never walked into it. I didn’t have any right to be sad about him leaving. We weren’t dating. We were just friends. I knew he was dating someone at the beginning of the year, and eventually, they broke up around February. I had to ask him when it happened because I wasn’t sure. That part of his life wasn’t important to me. We were just friends, and I didn’t even entertain the delusion that we would turn into something more.
At some point in the spring semester, I learned that Green Day, Blink 182, and Jimmy Eat world were on tour together. I was beyond excited and begged my mom to let me go to the concert. None of my normal concert going friends were going, and she said I had to have an adult accompany me. I ended up asking a family friend if she would take me, and she said yes.
I was so thrilled that I was going to see my favorite bands I overloaded him with information. At some point, he told me he had never been to a concert before. This shocked me. I had been to a BackStreet Boys Concert, seen Melissa Etheridge at Sunfest while in middle school, and just saw No Doubt play at Sunfest a few weeks prior. I guess all my excitement must have given me the courage to invite him to join us. Because at that point in my life, I was never that brave.
I am pretty sure I died a little inside when Tyler said he would go. Though we were just friends and I had a crush on someone else who I thought I had more of a chance with, I couldn’t believe Tyler said he would go. I think he said something about his mom not wanting him to go at first. But he told his mom he was eighteen and had already signed up for the army. He was going to go to the concert.
Mental break in writing because looking back and experiencing these emotions as a thirty-six-year-old is almost as unnerving as it was when I was fifteen. I am nervous about how my husband is going to react to reading my post because he reads everything I write.
