Most of you know I have been fighting a battle with depression and the jury is still out on which side is going to win. I am vehemently opposed to obtaining medication for this because I believe I can kick its butt on my own. However, sometimes I wonder.
I tried something different yesterday. I made myself get out of the house and go visit an old friend who was in town with her family for the weekend. It was nice to have a grown up conversation with someone who does not live in my home nor is not words on a computer screen. We talked in general about nothing as we watched the beach activity and looked out over the ocean toward the end or the world. While it was horribly hot, it was nice to be outside of my element even if only for a short time. It was great catching up with an old friend. I needed to be at the beach. I love it there. The smell of the ocean air, the sound of the waves and the beauty of the dangerous ocean. It has more power than anyone realizes. I am also trying other things. I am writing via snail mail to my lifelong best friend and it is exciting to wait for the mail and to write back and see how long it takes to get there. That helps too. (Teeny digression there. Yea, you didn’t know that.)
Unfortunately, I cut my visit short because I had hungry children and I knew I had to get home soon. I always have something to do that I will never get done because the inspiration leaves me when I start to see blue. (You know, you see red when you are livid. I see blue when I am down.) I didn’t want Mary to see me like that. So I left. That didn’t help my mood any. Instead of going home the way we came, I decided to give in to the boys request and we walked the beach back toward the house. I am happy to say they had a blast. I just felt worse and worse. I looked out over my beloved ocean and began to think of how the United States and other developed countries constantly send their street run off into the ocean and how dirty that makes the water at the sand’s edge. To watch people freely play in it. Hell, they may as well be playing in ditch water. I also thought about how careless people are in that they don’t take care of my beloved beach. They leave trash everywhere and really do not care that it affects everything. This made me sad because it is yet more evidence of human nature that fails our planet and fails our children. We fail each other as a people.
Then I turn inward and begin to think of personal things. How I used to LOVE the beach more than I do now. How it was a place of solace for me. I could stand at the edge of the tide and feel the waves lapping at my feet. I would look out as far as I could see and imagine falling off the “edge” of the earth and deeply breathe in the salt air and feel at peace. I would feel at home. For a brief moment…I would feel comfortable in my own skin. I would feel comfortable breathing and with Michele. Its almost elation. Once I began to think about how being at the beach used to make me feel. I stopped. I tried to catch that elusive moment of joy.
It eluded me.
The ocean seemed dark. The sky unforgiving. I felt alone.
I had to step back from that. I turned my attention to my boyz who were frolicking in the tied pools and having a blast. No video games, no money being spent for some overinflated attraction that is a disappointment. Just fun with each other and the beach. My beloved beach. That perked me up a little but I was still sad. (OMG did I just break down into tears right now while writing this!?)
We continued our walk down the beach and happened upon a festival that was going on for the day at the board walk. Once we got on the boardwalk, we listened to some music from a concert while we put on our shoes and refilled our water bottle. The band there played “Happy.” Maybe that was the world trying to tell me something. I took that as a sign and put all that mess behind me and we took the street which led to our house. Another sign was that we came across one of our daughter’s friends and he stopped and had a conversation with us. Polite and respectful teenagers always are a breath of better in this horrible world we live in.
Maybe I can beat this. Maybe my beloved beach will come back to me.
What do YOU think?
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