I’ve never been a beach person. According to my parents when I was a baby I would stay in the confines of the beach blanket so I didn’t touch the sand. They joked that they could have left me to get lunch and I wouldn’t have voluntarily touched the sand to leave. As I got older I loved the feeling of sand when I was in it but, the second I was done, I couldn’t wait to shower. It felt, to me, like chalk dust covering every inch of my body. I could sense all the dirt and I imagined it getting on all of my belonging and then everything in my life would be dirty. Yes, I do know how crazy that sounds. My brain works in mysterious ways.
Vacation planning with my husband has been a give and take. He’s a beach person and I’m a city person. He wants Tahiti and I want London. He wants Caribbean and I want London. Thank goodness for me he has learned to love London…and I have been on a beach vacation or two.
Now we have kids, live about an hour from a beach, I’m not working at summer camp, pandemic makes for a rather clear schedule, I ran out of excuses. Today we packed up the car and drove to the beach.
I pumped myself with tea, not too much because there were no public bathrooms, but enough to make sure I was in a pleasant mood. I packed snacks, towels, my current book, more snacks, more tea in case of a caffeine emergency and headed out. I was determined to not be grumpy thinking about all the sand that was inevitably going to cover every inch of everything we brought.
My feet touched the sand. It wasn’t so bad. I kept walking, set up our chairs, and I sat down to read my book while the kids hung out in the water with my husband. Turns out that it only took me FORTY YEARS to like the beach. Maybe we will go back on Monday.
Just Sarah 