I’ve got to ramble

I just spent two weeks in the sun, by the ocean.

 

It was a little slice of heaven.

 

I came home to 4 inches of snow, high winds and no marijuana wax. I felt my tan fading with each dreaded mile that brought me closer to home.

 

Every year, I go with my daughter on this vacation. When Roger left me, I ran to the ocean for comfort and it delivered. It’s a pilgrimage now for my broken soul.

 

We stayed in a beautiful air b and b in Tampa in an area they call “Little Cuba”. Not one person spoke English within a 40 mile radius. We had to use a translator to read the check in and out instructions for our villa. I ordered and ate food that I’ve never eaten before and couldn’t pronounce. I drove the whole way there and back and I changed my own tire and replaced my wipers and kept my oil full. I drove over huge bridges with all my windows open, daring God to blow me over while giggling hysterically from the adrenaline.

 

Most importantly, we laughed the whole vacation and reveled in the bond known only to mother and daughter.

 

I didn’t want to come back. Neither did she. She called me her first day back at work, crying.

 

I wanted to live alone down there in the sun and never wear any clothing save for my bathing suit top and a pair of cut off jean shorts.

 

I wanted to live where my best friend could not need me and where cancer couldn’t reach down its ugly talons and ruin my otherwise good day. I wanted to live where my daughters’ problems weren’t always mine and where work and heartache did not exist.

 

The sun and the water soothe me like nothing else can.

 

I don’t want to be here and I don’t want to be responsible for other people and their feelings.

 

I was ghosted and now it’s me that wants to do that ghosting. Ghosting is what you do when you don’t want to deal with someone anymore.

 

That just brings a whole new level of painful awareness to all that has happened in my life.

 

I have long, unruly hair and for the second time in my life, a small child has remarked recently that I have “mermaid hair”.

 

Maybe they know something I don’t.

 

Maybe they hear the sea calling me home, and they wonder what I am doing here where there is nothing but pavement beneath my feet.

 

Maybe I am beginning to wonder the same thing.