For you Christine and your beautiful sorority sisters!  What an amazing time you had in Florence.  

Mornings -- time for reflection....

Mornings --- I love them.  The time right after Lauryn leaves for school and all the morning rush is over.  I open the doors, listen to the ocean, and just breath.  Is this meditation?  Maybe my form of it….  Those few minutes before the phone starts ringing, and the chaos starts….just peace.  The time to think – really think.

Mornings at the beach are my favorite time – they change with the seasons.  Mornings in the summer are full of sounds of laughter and squeals of delight from kids.  I like summer here – but surprisingly it’s my least favorite season.  My backyard is full of strangers – many who think it’s ok to sit in my Adirondacks on our private part of the beach and drink beer.   By the way ---unless you want me to come sit on your chairs in your backyard without an invitation too -- it’s not ok!  

Fall mornings are by far my favorite.  The ocean is invariably calm – the waves just rolling in…. The only people on the beach are the few surf fishermen who come for their annual fall fishing trips with their buddies.  If you stare out long enough you’ll almost always see a couple schools of dolphin frolicking in the waves.  They like to body surf this time of year – actually body surf.  They love it just like we do – but unlike us, they are graceful – they don’t go crashing onto the shore with their top around their neck and their bottoms around their feet!  Then there are the pelicans ---I love pelicans….  It’s something about the little tuft of hair on the top of their head and those beady little eyes that get me.  The way they just skim the water in perfect sequence, following the line of the waves perfectly. I wonder who determines who gets to lead and who the poor little fella in the back is?  He’s always just a little farther away than everyone else. – flapping away madly to keep up.    Add to the scene a spattering of shrimp boats – nets down.  Is there anything more southern than a shrimp boat?  My friends know that my dream someday is to go on a shrimp boat.  My bucket list is incredibly simple – that and meet Burt Bacharach –  done!!  I saw my first shrimp boat on one of my first get -aways with Tom.  I was in awe, and I fell in love with them.  He had seen them his whole life, and he was in awe that I was so excited by them -- and he fell in love with me.  All of these make my fall mornings perfect….add the rumble of a coast guard or marine helicopter in the background, getting louder as it approaches,  and the scene is the perfect start to a day.

I love this beach.  I really do.  Sometimes I get so buggy living here though  - having to drive a half an hour just to go to the dry cleaners or the vet--making  an entire day of going to the mall.  Driving three hours to Raleigh for a doctors appointment,  then turning around and driving another three home is exhausting.  And strangely I miss Fresh Market.  I miss the feel of it, the classical music, the flowers - the choices.  I miss that almost more than anything else.  I miss what everyone else has in larger towns.  The ease of finding someone to fix your air conditioner or plumbing  – the things you take for granted when they are at your fingertips.  Your choices are limited in small towns,  so sometimes I wish this beach were in Wilmington – where there are restaurants, stores, culture --- more choices .  But the beaches in Wilmington aren’t like our beach; they are more crowded, and they don’t run east/west, so you get the sunrise and sunset in the fall, and they don’t face south, so you are warm all winter….and they do have civilization – -- and that kind of defeats the whole feel.  And I love our  house.  We built this house from a dream…my husband’s  lifelong dream to have a house on the ocean.  How can I leave that?   This is the only true home my children have known. We moved so often for my husband’s work when the kids were little that Emerald Isle was their only constant.  We bought our first beach house here 16 years ago, and we’ve lived here for 8 years…..with 14 months spent living in Raleigh.  Fourteen months that were painful for my daughter.  

 When we moved to the beach fulltime back in 2003 I promised the kids we’d never move them again. By the way ---  my recommendation -- never make a promise like this to your kids!!!   My vote was originally to move to Tampa, but we would have to sell the beach house, and I knew that would break Tom's heart - so off to North Carolina we went.   We had to time our move right for the kids' school ages, so my husband stayed up north to spend his last year with his company before he retired.  He would never fully retire, I knew that.  We figured he’d sit on a few boards and do a little consulting.  But I didn’t know he would be wooed to take over a company in Raleigh and work there for the next 6 years, coming home only on weekends.  Between the year he spent in PA commuting to NC and another year commuting to the UK after the kids and I moved back to the states, this living apart stuff was getting "old".  That was almost 8 years of a "weekend marriage".  I missed my husband - missed having a “normal” family – whatever that is - and I grew tired of always going alone to back to school nights or sports and other functions for the kids.  So after Christine graduated from high school in 2009,   Lauryn  agreed, as she put it,  to “take one for the  team” and move to Raleigh with me so we could live full time together.   I took her out of her school – away from her friends and the only true home she had ever known.  She made friends and fit in well enough in Raleigh, but she missed her real friends and her home.  So, of course she was unhappy, and although I was personally very content in Raleigh, the saying,   “You are only as happy as your most unhappy child” is very true – and I realized I made a selfish mistake.   You know, it’s funny – because I took my child out of her environment so I wouldn’t have to parent alone –be married alone, but Tom still traveled and was busy at work, so I still attended back to school nights and most other events alone – so really what was accomplished?  Eventually Tom made the decision very easy for us by taking over a business in Philadelphia and moving there during the week.    There was no reason any longer to stay in Raleigh – so back to the beach we went – and my daughter started smiling again….and when I started breathing normally again, I realized that I had been holding my breath. 

This is Lauryn’s home – but I’m not sure it’s mine.  When she graduates, and I’m left alone – just the pets and me – will I want to stay here?   Tom will continue to work in Philadelphia.  I’m sure he will always work, and I hope for his sake he always does.  He loves his work; it defines him.  It’s not a negative like so many people like to make it out to be.   Some people just love what they do and want to keep challenging themselves.  He is great at it, and I think it is wonderful for him,  and  I support him fully in this.   But his businesses will never be at the beach, and although Tom will still come home on weekends, I’m just not sure this is where I want to stay forever.  The view is perfect, but do I need more than that?  Most likely.   I grew up in Indiana, went to school in Florida, and have lived in several places in  different countries over the years, so my dearest friends are spread all over the place.  I try to decide where I would go – where I would feel a sense of “home” – is it here, or is it somewhere else?  I worry about my mom. - - she’d kill me for saying that because she still feels like she’s 40 – but I do..  That pull or guilt is powerful…   

So as  I get older,  and realize the nest will be empty soon, and I will be living here alone the majority of the time, I have decided it is time to worry about me – my future – where do I really want to be?   Call it a midlife crisis. Haha   So mornings at beach are my therapy sessions – my time for thinking.  What do I do – stay or make plans to go.  Tom is up for anything…he will let me choose this time.   He knows I’ve made many personal sacrifices for him to achieve his dreams, and thankfully it means a lot to him.   Right now – as I look out at the ocean, and listen to the one sound that absolutely massages my heart, I think I will probably grow old right here in this house….  But tomorrow, when I have to drive a half hour to a store that doesn’t have the ingredients for the recipe I want to make – I might lean toward more civilization.  One thing I know for sure…wherever I choose won’t have it all -- there's  always a give and take - but that’s life – on or off a beach.