Tag: introspection

from dislike to delight: embracing the beach experience

i grew up close to the coast; while the area and its people are known for being beach-centric, i was not. in fact, there was a time i hated the beach. my earliest source of dislike was beach sand itself. the sand would get in places it just shouldn’t be. specifically, i hated the granules for finding a home in the space between the skin of my toes and the straps of my sandals. they worked hard to create comfort in that home, sanding down and smoothing my skin in the most painful of ways. each step from the sand dunes to the strip–that little strip of road that ran parallel to the beach itself–would grow to feel like its own brand of sandblasting right there in my shoes.

the strip was the place to be. i hated it most. in peak season, there were the throngs of people. it became a coming-of-age art to weave in and out to find your path. it was discomforting and overstimulating. the strip was also the place people went to be free. catcalls and corner prayers echoed off the store awnings. bikinis and board shorts as far as the eye could see. girls weren’t supposed to get mad if someone grabbed us or slaps our behinds as we walked past them. there was often too much going on and too many going by to pinpoint one bold dumbass in a sea of them.

one time in high school, i was down on the strip with a few friends. we were cruising in my friend’s pathfinder, just being teenagers. you know, the kind of very responsible teenagers that forget to lock the doors when we got in. because this was in the before-times when automatic locks only engaged when you left a vehicle. we were stopped at a light when a random guy walked over and climbed in next to me. the mixed aromas of a freshly-snuffed tobacco, cologne, bergamot hair grease, brand new sneakers, and mint gum created a curious blend. his cornrows were fresh and his gold fronts gleamed. he didn’t scare me. his presence–his actions–did.

but women of my lineage don’t show things like that so it turned to an angry brand of madness and i. went. off. i cussed and fussed and kicked and hollered. i didn’t scare him. my presence didn’t scare him; my actions did.

the alternative was the boardwalk. that’s the place active people go to be active. i never had any disdain for it, really, but there wasn’t any standout reason to love it unless i went to ride bikes or rollerblade or run — something like that. i tried to find solace there but it’s so busy it seems like if you’re going to stroll leisurely, as i would, you’re out of place. it’s the middle. like the purgatory—the strip is an obvious choice for hell and the beach. ahhh. heaven.

there was that one time, though. this guy kissed me so good on a bench on the boardwalk that i thought he may have been the second coming of the savior. close to enough to heaven, i thought. but then i listened when he spoke and that killed all the noise. good thing, too. as i look back, he was just a doorman for purgatory—the conductor between heaven and hell.

but then, after that, the beach itself invited me to shift my paradigm. to try one more time to find favor there. to forget about the restraint and structure of shoes and the need to stay on guard for the journey. it beckoned me into a moment to let myself get lost. that’s where i found love. i found heaven on the same beach i thought i hated.

we strolled leisurely across the sand, in search of favorites. with open minds. holding fast to social graces. he saved me from too much of everything and nothing, with just a walk and a talk. matching. the reciprocity it required of me energized and revived me. i loved it. and that walk—the longest, loveliest walk of my existence—changed my life for the better. and it balanced out all that ugh-blahness from before. i began to love the beach for the favor i found. it became my favorite, most populated location to be alone with love.

the waves crashing made me remember how good and pure persistence can be. he was. but not in a tsunami kind of way or like the man on the strip that time. no. he was the like the ebb and flow of the tide. you know how it gently, steadily reshapes the shore line and erases the footprints of those who came before? you know how the tide makes things look and feel brand new? that’s how he was. like the beach. and the salt of the water made the cut on my leg from shaving sting a little. but then the next day it was almost healed. it was like magic. or a miracle. or a gentle reminder that this, too, shall pass.

you know how calming the ocean can be? and the sound of the water rushing might startle you a bit but not exactly scare you? how sometimes, many times, the sound excites you in a giddy kind of way? makes you feel youthful and exuberant? makes you want to jump into the next tide sweeping in? makes you want to get carried away? he’s just like that. and you know how the ocean seems to dare you to be open and willing? like it needs you to try something new. there’s a newness unmatched down there on the beach. sometimes it looks and smells a lot like reckless abandon because you know there’s danger in there—especially at night when you can’t see it all, because that’s when the current is most surprising, but it’s okay.

because it’s heaven, it won’t be predictable. and there might be tears. saltwater can burn your eyes. but you wouldn’t know heaven if it weren’t for hell. and there might be discomfort, but that’s because change and transition and newness throw us humans off sometimes. yea, you might get lost on the beach but someone will always find you. someone will walk with you. and you may find a brand of madness somewhere, either within or without you, but hell, every experience should be an experience,

right?

February 28, 2025
unveiling truths: living beyond our shadows

only sometimes, i wonder what it’d feel like to live on the other side of fear. on the other side of restraint. on the other side of caution. what would it feel like to not think about the mess to be cleaned up or the tasks to get caught up or the screams to explain or the shape and folds of my body and the faces or the ways my heart makes visible the emotions that rise and fall and rise and grow and rise and expand til there’s no space or air left to do anything else but explode. what happens and who am i after boom goes the dynamite?

what’s life like after i give more than i thought i had? after i show more than i meant to? after i expose truths i didn’t know i had lied about? after i open the door to rooms i have yet to look at or inside myself? after light is shed on shadows i called monsters and left for dead? after i show what i was scared to see? what is left of treasures untold?

sometimes i wonder if i jumped in feet first just because you asked or if it was because I didn’t know how to breathe the air up there with you. i wonder if fear or faith kept me from drowning. did i even go deep enough? or did you stay with me, where i felt safe, because you were fine wading even if it wasn’t fair? sometimes i wonder if i let lil ol me get in the way of a big new us.

February 26, 2025
unfolding authenticity: discoveries from divorce

a long time ago, a supervisor told me that people are the most unpredictable product. but humans are creatures of habit, i’d proudly retorted. he ignored me, and explained why data on patterns and trends matters so much. because, while the behavior might look different person to person or maybe even over time in the same person, it can be traced back to pretty reliable motivations. the triggers are there, if we know where to look and for what we’re looking. people are who and how they are, he’d said, even when they don’t want to be. especially, he’d emphasized, when they don’t want to be. i didn’t revisit that until after my divorce. after realizing i had focused on all the ways i could repair what was never actually broken.

i first met my ex-husband in middle school at church. a friend brought him after our youth pastor taught us what evangelism could look like at our age. we crushed on each other a bit, but nothing really happened. he seemed too particular for my liking, and i may have been a bit too flitty for his. a couple years later, it didn’t much matter. the youth ministry sort of lost its luster. we all grew up; high school changed what life required of us, and many of us got jobs that required us to work sunday service and wednesday night bible study hours. so, when we crossed paths at an ice cream social at the university we both ended up going to, it seemed kismet. i thought the creator was orchestrating a grand symphony for us.

i didn’t rush it. i dated. liked. loved. even got heartbroken. i wanted to get it all out of my system before settling into forever with my fated. when we finally got together, it sort of felt more like completing an item on a checklist than the kismet moment in time people lauded it as. where they saw a good catch, i felt trapped. with him, i couldn’t be the version of myself i loved most, but i also had never seen any woman be that version in marriage, so i thought it was par for the course. i thought our married selves were meant to be different. more reserved. not knowing how to be married, we just did what we saw other married people do. as i consider it, we never really cleaved unto one another. we didn’t know how. so, we folded. we even folded the red flags in and called them tests. and i think we thought that, at some point, folding was enough. that, one day, it’d be easier to just stay that way.

you know how, if you don’t have scissors, but you need to only use a piece of a piece of paper, you fold it back and forth and sharpen the crease where you plan to separate the pieces? and how, after all those folds, and maybe a little moisture, the paper just sort of gives way? that’s how our divorce happened. we folded. and folded again. and again. back and forth. and by the time the first little bit of rain came, the fold wasn’t a fold anymore.

i was returning from a field trip with my students when i received the curious text that changed my life: i don’t want to do this anymore. at the time, i’d thought he was referring to his job. i had just recently resigned from my sales job to pursue my master’s degree and go into education. i thought he wanted to sit down and plan his own escape. when i later realized his truth, i tried desperately to save our marriage. it wasn’t so much that i thought it worth saving, but that i didn’t want to fail publicly. i didn’t want to admit that we’d made a mistake. i didn’t want to add to the statistic. and all i could think of were all the divorced women i’d known who never even found self-love let alone that of another person. i was scared of what was on the other side. i didn’t know if the grass could be greener.

i later realized that he didn’t want a divorce. he was content with not wanting me as his wife and not allowing anyone else to have me, either. we were to remain married on paper. split the bills. share the house. and “do our own thing.” he knew me enough to know that i couldn’t, in good conscience, do ‘my own thing’ and still be married. i didn’t take my vows lightly. so, if we divorced, it’d be solely my decision. my financial burden. my public admission of failure. it took me awhile, and then just a moment.

in the thick of that season, i could only think of how surprising his actions were. he suddenly seemed so callous. combative. manipulative. so unlike the boy i’d met in church all those years ago. i could not understand how someone who called themselves my friend first could ever treat me roughly as their partner. the pursuit of happiness, for me, is intrinsically linked to my ability to flow where the streams take me and to allow others that same pursuit. even if it doesn’t suit or serve me. for him, it was to control the flow—to dam or divert the streams at will, especially to suit or serve him. that’s what made me seem flitty—what made him too particular to me, respectively, way back when. i just didn’t think he’d be that way with me. but, it was never about me, and i won’t fault him for being his authentic self. it just served as a reminder: when people show you who they are, believe them. the first time. the best people, places, and things in life don’t often require you to fold. and even schisms as cataclysmic as divorce have their merits.

February 24, 2025
comfort cravings: a journey of self-discovery

i often ask myself, “why am i like this?” but rarely seek an answer. sometimes it’s in jest because i’m doing something utterly ridiculous at worst and mildly illogical at best. sometimes it’s because someone else has asked the question and i’ve repeated it, earnestly wondering why i am the way i am. other times, anger or frustration or sorrow has planted a seed so dark that i have to beg the question to find light. all times, it’s because i seek to understand my quirks in a way that celebrates, rather than merely tolerates, my perfect imperfections.

today, i found myself craving pancakes and sausage from a certain fast food joint that doesn’t even specialize in breakfast. the craving grew so great, i could taste the fluffy, almost spongy cakes sopped in maple-flavored corn-syrupy richness. i could smell the mixed aromas of hot coffee, cold orange juice, bleached-soaked towels, and old mop water of the restaurant itself. i froze. the hum of the coffee maker, the gentle rumble of the ice machine, and the beeping alerting staff that time was running out sounded off like i was right there. all because of a craving. it irked me. but i didn’t feel sad. and i couldn’t remember why this was the way to satiate my sorrows. the refrain of “girl, wtf” echoed in my brain, bounding from one corner to another, like a game of marco polo, ridiculing my lack of self-awareness. and suddenly, i was stuck in a raven moment.

i found myself tracing the memory of every significant time i wanted that thing. when i got the news that my grandmother passed just moments before my final exam—the one that determined whether i’d graduate with my master’s degree—i put my last $5 toward the craving. after my divorce was final and i almost hit a guardrail leaving the courthouse, i went straight to that lil irish spot to get a hit. when that guy told me we could never be an item because i wasn’t enough, there i was again. like a fiend for a fix. each time sadness and overwhelm threatened to dry up my bones, i was back in that restaurant. “give me two, please.” tethered to the transformative power of a taste. a taste that could make me feel different. better. more like myself.

i kept pulling the rope of my mind, checking every moment tied to the craving, and sure enough, every significantly sorrowful moment was tied to this want. moments turned around by giving into it. i’d almost gotten to the end of my rope when i noticed that there had been other senses tied to the memories that sparked the craving, once upon a time. they weren’t stored with just a heaviness and a taste. the ties that bound had been severed.

growing up, i thought my sister’s father—my mom’s husband—was my dad. he had adopted me so i had his last name. i didn’t know another man existed. especially not when he saved me. if he thought mom was being too harsh or too anything else, he was there. keeping her off my back. giving me space and grace to be a kid, to make mistakes, to be my whole self. and when tears came, he would go get hotcakes and sausage. the butter pats made for bright eyes. the smile, syrupy sweet. he would wipe my eyes and kiss my cheek and hug me warmly. he’d ask me if i felt any better. i always did. always.

but when he and mom split, it felt like he left us all. and i kept trying to find replacement parts for the feel good. for the give a damn. nothing could, not like that craving. and one day he became less than a stranger. a ghost of a stranger. so i cut the tether to him. the only thing left was the craving. the bright eyes and syrupy sweet smile. the warmth a hug could’ve brought. the feel good. the give a damn.

so…this is why i’m like this? why, when the world is big and dark and scary like the storm-bringer it can be, the craving rages? that’s the dope–I mean the dopamine rush? that’s the thing that chases the blues away? yea. when other people have collard greens and black eyed peas, fried chicken and candied yams, cornbread or rolls, and visions of family all around to satiate their soul on a day that’s been a day, i have my fast-food breakfast. alone.

and as long as the cakes are hot and spongey, the rest will make for bright eyes and a syrupy sweet smile. i will feel better. as long as i remember the faith in the feel-good of that moment. always.

February 22, 2025