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.”
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 (well, thirty- seven since I took a year break) 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. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to hold back. I have a hard enough time remembering what I did at the beginning of the week. I just hope I don’t mix up things from twenty years ago.
The concert wasn’t until the beginning of May, which meant it was a few weeks away, and for a fifteen-year-old, it felt like an eternity.
We texted along the way to the concert. Trying to figure out where to meet. My family friend, Joy, thought everything happening between us was adorable. I told her to stop. We were just friends. Trying to remember events from twenty years ago is kind of a blur. I don’t remember him getting there or how long we waited for the first band, but I’ll never forget when the music started.
The first band was Jimmy Eat World, and to this day, they are still one of my absolute favorite bands. As they played through their album Bleed American I sang along to every word of every song. I remember feeling self conscious at first. Wondering if Tyler would think I was silly, but in the end, it didn’t matter. The music took over, and I was there to have a good time. If this boy I liked thought I was silly, so be it. If he was going to like me, it would have to be for me being me, not a pretend version of myself.
As the last chord of The Middle played, I was a ball of energy. We were waiting for Blink 182 to come on. I need to pee and find food. Nothing has changed in my concert going habits in twenty years. I beelined it to the bathroom and picked up a sweet corn arepa on my way back to our spot on the lawn. However, Tyler had made his way a little closer than where we were for Jimmy Eat World.
Blink 182 started with Travis spinning in on his drum set above the crowd. I guess Tyler knew more of Blink’s song because this time he sang along with me. High-speed music coursed through me. At some point, I must have mentioned that I was having trouble seeing because he ended up picking me up, and I watched most of the show like a koala on his back. Then Adam’s Song came on. If you haven’t heard that song, I highly suggest it. It’s a slow, powerful song about a friend who commits suicide. I remember his thumb running against my forearm.
The rest of the concert was a blur. I barely remember Green Day. I know they were good, and I enjoyed it, but I was still on a high from being a tiny koala. Eventually, the concert ended, and we all went home. I remember talking my head off to Joy about the music and how thankful I was that she took me. She asked if I was sure if I was just thankful for the concert and not anything else. I didn’t understand what she meant at the time.
After taking a shower and snuggling into the sheets, I got a text. It read. Thanks for inviting me. The next one said “I liked us.”
Only there wouldn’t be us until thirteen years later. Tyler went to the army and war. I lived my life. I finished high school, went to college, partied, traveled the world, had my heart broken, broke a few hearts myself. I even got married and moved to Brazil. I never expected a friend request from the boy at the rock show to change the course of my life. But I’m glad it did.
I couldn’t think of what to write today so I turned to my handy dandy 300 writing prompts journal. I flipped through page after page and thought I was going to write about “If you could pack up and leave on vacation today, where would you be off to?” Then I kept flipping and stopped at “Is our world today a better or worse place than it was when you were a kid?” I started planning for that one. But then the book almost closed on itself and the very last page was left open. The prompt was “Describe your favorite photograph.” That one stuck with me. I knew the answer right away.
There is a picture of me at the beach at night. I am on the sidewalk, sitting on a pillar of a bike rack. In my hand is my cell phone. I have a look of shock on my face and a bit of excitement. I am wearing a green long sleeve shirt that is covering my hands and I think tan capris. What makes this picture memorable has nothing to do with the image itself. It’s the memory that is invoked every time I look at it.
I can feel the humidity on my skin and the salt on my face. The ocean breeze softly blows as my phone rings. My nerves are on edge when I look at the number. It’s an international number and I know only one person who would call me from out of the country. My friends tease me. It’s Tyler. He’s in Iraq in a war and the boy I have a crush on is calling me. I know nothing is going to happen between us. The age difference. Him being in actively in the middle of a war. Nevertheless, I am giddy, excited that he is alive.
I say “Hello,” there is a delay in his response. But I expect that.
My friend snaps the picture, and the flash goes off when he finally says “Hello.”
