For 10/7/23

Dear future self, maybe it's been 10 years and I'm looking back on a life that has taken on challenges beyond my wildest dreams and slayed them. I could look back and say I took to every moment with gusto and shared the biggest laughs and the tenderest moments. I get to smile and stare into my son's eyes and know I did my very best for him to carry on with the same zest for living out his best life. We could get to look back and say, in between clinks of wine glasses, that we put our best foot forward in all the moments that counted but also in those that did not if there is such a moment because of carpe diem and hurrah. Cheers friends to a life well lived. 

Today, this weekend, we did a thing - my ex-husband and I - took a 2.5-hour turned 3.2-hour car ride with our son and back the same path because we missed the exit again to our summer family vacation spot Cannon Beach - we walked the shores, we shared a room, not a bed, we enjoyed lunch and James gets to grow up with healthy co-parents who have learned a thing or two about living life with intentions and not beholden to generational habits. 

Thank you beautiful Cannon Beach and Ocean Lodge for cherished memories, the depth of which along serene infinite ice-cold water, we are but a speck, but through the strength of your waves, you carried our story last night into the evening sunset of today. Your wind and misty skies filled our lungs, covered our fragile bodies, and gave us peace. 

Because this story is not yet one I am ready to tell, I lay down fresh typed words on a blank screen to be here when I am. 

Sweet night, deep tunes of smooth jazz, carry me forth into morning and let my eyes rest on the clouds of today. 

Today (3/8/25): Hey there past being, I know I lived it, but it feels more like a life lived a long time ago. There is something about starting a decade, but in having lived it out to the end, staring at the reflection, seeing the fault lines and the cracks. This last year was tumultuous and a blur at best. Lost footings and barely attempted new beginnings. Rattled by the parenting of a tween more or less solo; a path well trodden but nonetheless new and lost to me. So anyway, to the 40 that was, a decade past, full, sweet, chaotic and at times sad but this carefree, idealistic, believer in humanity is hopefully just beginning...

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