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Last week, my family and I traveled to Wrightsville Beach, NC for our annual vacation. I’ve been going to Wrightsville for 38 years, and I’m connected to the area in a way that feels like home. When I calculate the expenses of nearly four decades of summer life on the Azalea Coast, I realize that I could have bought a sizable stretch of sand to call my own.
While walking through a gift shop, I noticed a hand-painted sign on the wall that read “All she does is beach, beach, beach.” The statement caught my attention because my husband said something similar the night before our trip was scheduled to begin.
“You’re always upset about something,” he said. ”Why can’t you just leave this stuff behind for a while?”
I was stunned into unfamiliar silence. Why can’t I just leave it? Because the day never ends. Is a mother ever off the clock?
But, I’m a different person at the beach. The minute I inhale the salty air, I’m sedated. My husband and children like me better when I’m in the mist, because I don’t nag. I don’t worry (much). I don’t complain.
Being an overbearing wife and mother is hard work. I don’t expect perfection from my husband and children, but I do have high expectations. It’s the way I’m wired, as they say. In my defense, I’ve co-parented two great kids, so I refuse to apologize for being wound up tighter than my husband’s ukulele strings. But I do admit to feeling more at peace when I’m not monitoring every action or questioning every decision.
For seven days, I didn’t wear makeup and I barely combed my hair. One, because the 115-degree heat index would have melted the foundation off my face. Two, because the humidity made my straw-like strands stand on end. I looked like a cross between Nick Nolte and Phyllis Diller. And I didn’t care.
The girls ate their weight in popcorn shrimp and French fries. They went to bed with sunscreen still stuck to their bodies and they pulled on wrinkled shorts the next morning. They watched televised marathons of Gator Boys and Call of the Wildman in the evenings, and they took beatings in the waves that produced a minimum of 9 hours of sleep each night.
As for my husband? Well, it took about three days for him to mentally disconnect from the office. He checked emails to avoid having so many to come back to, but for the most part, he unplugged. I tried to do the same, but I felt compelled to keep scanning the weather forecast after learning through Facebook posts that another massive storm was headed straight for Charleston. What could have I done about it eight hours away? As soon as I turned on my iPhone, the tension moved back into my shoulder muscles.
The half-dead oak tree in our front yard. What if it falls through the roof? The dogs…what if they’re outside? My aunt…what if her house loses power? Who will be able to take her someplace safe? What if we have to leave early?
I texted a neighbor and asked how things were going. She reported that the storm was mostly hard rain and loud thunder, but our zip code had escaped the worst of it.
Ok…that’s good to hear. Back to the beach.
It’s not as if vacation was a reprieve from my normal daily duties. I still straightened the condo and tidied up piles of flip-flops. I still had to make grocery runs and empty trash cans. I wrote a few articles and answered a couple of client calls, because as a freelance writer, I feel as though I have to. If I’m not available, someone else will be. That’s the nature of the business. I was still mothering and managing…but from a different mindset. My hair was a tangled mess of salt and chlorine, but I wasn’t running around with it on fire as I normally do at home. And this makes me wonder: Is home supposed to do this to a person? Should we feel better when we aren’t there?
Mike has saltwater in his veins, too. In fact, at Symphony Sunday a few years ago, psychic Ann Reynolds told him that he needed to be near water to be completely content. She also told him that he had been near death three times — but on a brighter note — he was renewed, if not repaired, by the sea. He could rely on the ocean, a lake, a river or a stream to fix whatever was broken. When it was my turn to receive the $10 reading, Reynolds told me that I was drowning in papers.
“I see you becoming buried alive in documents. You’re overwhelmed right now. I see lots of complicated matters — is this right?”
I sat there with my mouthing hanging open. My dad had just died, and I was in the process of settling his taxes and estate. There were lots of forms to fill out; many signatures. I was also doing marketing work for a law firm in town. Reynolds didn’t tell me how my mind, body and spirit eliminated stress as she revealed to my husband. But it feels like running off to a sandy town with a never-ending view is the cure.
Was it our best vacation? No, not really. We’ve had better. There were years when we arrived on the beach’s doorstep with less baggage. Don’t get me wrong: I’m a blessed lady. I have a solid marriage, two beautiful daughters, a nice home and a means of paying my share of the bills. I’m happy…but I’m not easy to live with.
On the last day of our trip, we went back to the gift shop to pick up trinkets of thanks for the housesitter, the pet sitter and the aunt sitter. I also wanted something special for myself. In the same area as the beach, beach, beach sign was a rounder of necklaces that had symbolic meanings. The one that I reached for first was a sterling silver sand dollar on a delicate chain. When I turned the necklace over to check for a price, the message read: JUST GO WITH THE FLOW.
I went with it.