Salt Water Girl

I was looking for beach houses today.  Not to purchase(yet), but to rent next summer.  I am only four weeks out from our last beach vacation that was cut short by a pesky hurricane.  Again.  I need to re-think the week we go to the Outer Banks.  Although,  I would not change a thing about our recent  vacation week, except the leaving-early thing.  You see, I am a salt water girl.

There is a reason tears are salty.  It runs in my veins.  I can always hear the sound of the ocean.  It is the rythum of my heart and soul.  Just the thought of the ocean and the beach can bring a tear to my eye.  A tear of fond remembrance, a tear of longing, of times to come.  They are not tears of sadness though-times spent down by the sea have always been good.  Even when I am saying "See you next time" I try not to be sad.  I try to look forward to the next time I will see the ocean again.  I will confess that can be difficult at times.

My friend and I were talking today about cottages we are looking at for next summer.  We are both done with school and ready for summer vacation.  I try not to think about how much time is in between now and then.  I do not want to wish time away. I will enjoy the time until the hot days of summer roll around again, and I am floating in the ocean again, it holding me in its mighty embrace.  Today is just one of those days when I wish that beach time was just a little bit closer.

So, until that time, I will surround myself with my beach finds-sea shells in all shapes and sizes, pictures of sandy children, my husband body surfing with our kids, and memories of digging sand castles.  Thoughts of the sun burning my skin until I can not stand it any longer and I must sit under the umbrella or drench myself in suntan lotion.  Reading in my beach chair until the sound of the surf lulls me to sleep.  Brushing the dried salt off of my skin.  I will always be a salt water girl.

Catching up

I did a lot of catching up today.  I talked over coffee and breakfast to a friend I had not seen in a while.  I talked with my brother who I had been playing phone tag with for months.  I did two loads of laundry that were screaming at me from the upstairs laundry hamper.  I went to the grocery store so people would stop giving me funny looks when they opened the pantry-the "Do you plan on feeding us?" look.  The bank, the Post Office, a hair cut that I usually get twice a year.  Finally meeting another friend to return the bag she had let me borrow.  Monday was catching up day all around.

Sometimes I feel like that all I am doing is "catching up".  I tend to look at it in a good way.  I think I will always be catching up one way or another.  There will always be laundry to do.  Once there is not, that will mean that there will be no one to do laundry for.  Funny looks from three children over lack of snacks will mean that they have much more interesting things to do, people to see, or places to go.

I will always be catching up with friends.  We all lead very fast paced, busy lives.  Having some time to sit and focus on what we have been doing is such a joy.  To talk about movies we have seen, books we have read, our vacations over the summer break, to be proud of what our kids are up too.  To talk about our favorite book/film-Harry Potter.  It is good to have friends to catch up with.  I will never be finished doing that.

My brother-my link to my childhood, who I practically raised.  To remember him as the baby I would rock to sleep and now he is almost thirty, singing, writing, playing guitar in a quasi-rock band.  To talk, and laugh, and shake our heads.  To wonder out loud, to question many things, to support and help each other-I will always be catching up with him and he with me.

I never want to finish catching up on anything.  Even the laundry.