It is Sunday evening, the night before I return to work after a much needed week of vacation on Cape Cod. Yes tonight I am sad, melancholy and angry, but not for the reason you may think. Tomorrow going back to work is a privilege. I am grateful for the same routine and tomorrow morning I am going to savor each moment more than I ever have, simply, because I can.
Last Sunday night I had started working on a blog post. These were my thoughts……
“Ahhhhh…..finally, vacation! This is the one week out of the year that I have total control over each and every step I take., If I choose spend the day at the beach, I can. If I want to read a book, I will. If I decide to take an afternoon nap, I do. I can walk for as long as I would like because for this week I do not have to consult with the clock to see how many minutes are mine. This week everything is according to my time, I am in control. I am not confined between four walls, chained to a desk or sitting in a meeting staring out the window wishing I was outside breathing the fresh air rather than that has been conditioned.
Yes, this week I am vacationing on Cape Cod with my family and some very close friends. The Cape is peaceful playground. Hundreds of thousands of people flock here each week to relax, rejuvenate and reconnect. Life’s rules change when you step out of your car. Everything slows down”.
At the moment I committed these thoughts to paper it was truly the way I felt. I loved my week on the Cape. It included soul southing beach time, peaceful sunsets, and wonderfully fun kayaking adventures with my friend. I lost myself in three wonderful and different memoirs, each story spoke to me in different ways but each conveyed the truth about remaining true to your heart. There were times when the whole family was together, even if it was for a short while. Laughs were abundant, good food shared, and heartfelt conversations were etched in our memories.
During the week I kept connected through Facebook. I posted pictures and videos of my adventures and read about my friend’s lives. There was a post by a soon to be married friend talking about her married name. If only her fiancé believed in hyphenated names hers would be so cool. But she would by overwhelmingly happy with just the singular version.
On Saturday, the last day of my Cape Cod vacation this same friend posted this:
Bittersweet thought for the day...two years ago today I lost my Mom to cancer... But in 20 days I am going to have a new mother (in law)..& I could not have asked for a better replacement!
Upon reading this my soul lightened. Not only did I know my friends struggles with the loss of her Mother, but I knew how happy she was to have found her soul mate. To have another woman that you could call Mom and associate all of those comforting and nurturing feeling about is priceless. I am so fortunate that my Mother is alive, but I did have that same type of loving relationship with my Mother-in-Law. That is the title that society has tagged it as, but she too was my Mother. My own Mother totally understands this connection for she had the same with my Father’s Mother.
So upon my arrival back home I proceed out to run some errands. With my friend’s Facebook post clinging to my mind I made a mental not to contact a mutual friend regarding suggestions for a wedding gift.
So adding insult to injury, not only was my vacation over but it appeared as if last night my magical Blackberry had died. For those of you who know me I have shared so very many special and heartfelt images with you. I was able to revive her for a short while and went out this morning for a walk. Shortly into the walk it became apparent that my magical Blackberry’s time was drawing near. Not only was my time off from work waning, but would my run of beautiful photos come to an end? This afternoon reluctantly I headed out to the Verizon store to replace my companion of two years. As my daughter said, “You are joining us on the dark side” I now have a new I-Phone.
I could not sell my Blackberry back to Verizon for twenty eight dollars. The pictures that it contains are worth so much more than that. With my new I-Phone in tow I headed to Walmart to do my grocery shopping. As I pulled into the parking lot my new phone sounded. I thought that I had inadvertantly pocket dialed someone. Not knowing what I was doing I began pressing buttons and icons. It appeared that I had received a text message from a very busy, dear friend, one that I do not hear from often. When I read the message my heart sank, my stomach knotted and my body was overcome with a fiery heat. Could I be reading this message correctly? Our mutual friend who had posted to Facebook about the two year anniversary of her Mother’s death lost her fiancé last night!!!!! How cruel, how unfair, how unfathomable!! Why is it that some people experience the worst of the worst over and over while others of us don’t?
All day this news has been weighing heavy upon my heart. I know that there is nothing that I can do to alleviate my friend’s tremendous loss and her piercing pain. I was reminded of my selfishness. Here I was complaining about returning to work tomorrow morning and getting back to the routine………how she must be longing to awake to a routine Monday and know that this was just a horrible dream. But now the empty side of the bed is her new, cruel reality.
While I sat on the beach this week I, as I always, do picked up handfuls of sand and let the grains slowly pass through my fingers. As I felt each grain I lamented about all that was, all that was not, and all that has past. Today, while living in my sadness I realized that each grain of sand is just like a moment in time. This moment, this grain is all we have there is no promise of another grain or another moment. So, tomorrow as I awake to return to work I do so with a humbled and heavy heart……………I am here, I can breathe and I can feel the grittiness of the grains of sand.
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