heart is. Huh. I'm feeling heartless as hell today. I'm back home. From the beach. I'm pretty uphappy about that. Usually when I'm headed home I can at least get it up thinking about how freaking great my bed is. I love that bed. Eh. Not so this time. There are my littles that make me a bit homesick, but they're getting older and busier. Old Auntie Lisa ain't what she used to be when you've got friends and boyfriends and activities and in Landon's case, the vacuum. Yep, I'm in a full-blown post-vacation pity-party funk. "Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened." Yeah, suck it. This post is likely to be a bit disjointed. Forgive me if there is a lack of continuity. I'm not feeling particularly continuous today.
First, a big standing o for my friend Kelley who completed her first 5k run at Disney. You're such a bad ass. And another for my friend Kate who did the Disney Princess half marathon. That's 13.1094 miles in a sparkly tutu. You kicked its mother futting ass, KP. Well done girlies!
Let's catch up, shall we? That should make me feel better. I'm counting my lucky stars that I lived through the 12 hour each way drive down and back to Fort Morgan, AL. A couple of times I just had to tap out with the driving. I'd just be finished, because of the big trucks crossing the center line into my lane and the dear sweet old folks too busy checking out the scenery to remember that they were on an interstate with a speed limit of 70. Maybe their big old cars just can't go 70?
There are things I learned on the drive. Twizzlers make excellent straws. Automatic toilet flushers are no guarantee of safety. (For heaven's sake women TURN AROUND and double check that it worked!) The road construction near Effy and Marion and Mt. Vernon will never be finished. Ever. There's really nothing like driving over a slight rise in the pavement and seeing the shoreline.
There are things I learned while at the beach, too. My hair is still angry about all the humidity and salt water in the air. Even if you have to wrap yourself in a blanket to sit outside, it's still worth it to hear the waves. Beer tastes better at sea level. While it's nice to have had a break from the day-to-day normal life stress, phone calls, work, cleaning; you never really go away from yourself. Wherever you go, you take you with and all your stuff comes with you. I had a great time; I'm so grateful I was able to go; I cried when I left. But everything I left here is still here and it was there, too. Vivian was right in "Pretty Woman", sometimes it is just a matter of geography.
I started seeing a therapist the week before I left. The day I went for our first meeting I felt like I was getting ready for a blind date. Picking the perfect outfit, extra time with hair and make-up. Have to craft that perfect (or as perfect as possible for this 40 year old) facade for the new girl, you know. I don't want her to guess from onset that I'm a walking disaster area. Julie C. reminded me before I left that the entire POINT was for her to see the cracks. She also reminded me how great it feels when you first go in and get some insight. The first few meetings seem to create the most hope. She was right. I did feel better and I felt a couple of what Oprah would call "ah ha" moments. I generally think of them as "Damn it, that's right" or "Crap, I suck" moments.
But a few moments does not a life change make, usually. I'm going to be honest here, Hellions, I'm feeling like I'm without purpose. Now, if someone said that about any of my friends, I'd poke them in the nose. This isn't a statement about anyone else, it's about me, period.
I was sitting on the beach watching that water crash and crash and crash into the sand thinking how damn fruitless it seems. The ocean and water in general seems to be the stuff cheesy metaphors are made of...eventually water changes rock and sand and the shore. It just keeps marching on. That's lovely and all, but the water is soulless. It is without feeling or emotion or concept of time. It doesn't care that it takes millions of years to change things, because it has millions of years to make it happen. It doesn't get frustrated with its lack of progress or feel the panting of impatience. It doesn't feel hopeless. The water doesn't feel a sense of purpose because it doesn't feel. It just does what nature intended. It relentlessly moves; it harbors life, but it doesn't even know that's what it is doing.
People, unlike that water, need to know what they are doing has a larger purpose. We need to know that there's value in the motion. The truth about that, my friends, is that no one can give you that knowledge. People can point out this or that or the other that makes you of value to them, but you have to find it yourself. It's not the kind of thing you can simply take another's word for. Sometimes you feel hopeless and worthless and without direction. When we feel that way it seems that people want to help us so desperately. People who love us and care for us are compelled by compassion to want to do or say something, anything to give us some relief. Maybe because they know that feeling or maybe because they fear someday knowing it. But the truth is, I have to find my why. Why I need to keep relentlessly crashing into the shore, my purpose for perpetual human motion. My home that there is no place like and where my heart is, where there's a lot more fresh and a lot less hell.
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