Heavy

I tried to assert dominance over the seagulls at Mayflower Beach the other day, a cherished summer day trip tradition with my best friends that I’ve known since the dawn of time. “Don’t you even think about it” I said while pointing at a speckled gull. 3 days prior I was writing a poem in admiration of these birds. I am fickle and reserve the right to be in awe of and annoyed by nature.

“Are you ok?” Meg asked me after I dumped some unfiltered truth in our beach circle. I have become jaded over the past few years and every so often all that negativity sneaks up on me and spills over the edge. “You just seem heavy.” she said. “I am heavy, Meg.” and then gave her a laundry list of why that might be. What I didn’t add was that I am also literally heavier than I’ve been in a while, wearing a bathing suit is not my fav, and my hormones are all over the place. Something happens when you’re in your forties and I am not 100% sure what that is but what I am sure of is that you become less tolerant of bullshit (or, in my case, completely intolerant of it) and your filter becomes less filtery. This also means that when bullshit is all around you, it can get you down and potentially suck your fun and zen away. Over it, all of it. That’s where a lot of us are at.

We arrived to the beach at 9 and stayed until sunset, the sun with a hazy filter over it from Canadian wildfires. At the water’s edge, we talked about the many layers of our lives and how those layers contribute to the way things play out now. All of us have felt the heavy I brought with me that day, none of us pretends to be perfect. The one thing that truly unites us is the ability to laugh at ourselves and one another. This was especially important when we came back to our stuff only to find that seagulls had eaten all of Kelli’s potato chips, had pecked open my bag of pretzel sticks, and one had even shit on my bag and hat. My attempt to assert dominance was foiled.

The next morning, I drove J.D. to soccer and felt a familiar lump building in my throat. I’m going to cry for no reason, I thought. Yay perimenopause! The more I tried to fight it, the worse it got. A year ago I got divorced and a month later Dad died. It has been a grueling few years and the hits keep coming. I thought about all of that and more, the tears began to flow. Then, when I sat down in my backyard to write these words, I heard an acorn fall. “Hi, Dad.” I said, his line “An acorn fell” being the first in his book on whaling that I have YET to finish (shame on me). Acorn after acorn dropped down, each one reminding me that fresh new beginnings are happening all around us, encouraging us to do the same. I believe in very little but will always trust that nature tells us where to turn our eyes in times of sorrow. Another acorn fell.

As luck would have it, I had therapy about an hour after my crying fit and it all came out there too. I am a private crier, I have probably only shed tears three times in my therapist’s office. “I’m just so tired.” I said to my therapist “Tired of pretending it’s all fine when it’s not. Sometimes I just want to scream.” She talked about the exhaustion that results from being in my place in the order of things but also reminded me of all the good. The truth she dropped landed like one of those acorns in my soul, establishing roots there. I sit here tonight trying to write my way out of this.

“Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.” These are Mary Oliver’s “instructions for living a life” and also graced the front of our wedding card for my niece Jordan who got married this weekend. I re-read the poem that these words came from and found that it captured the essence of what being alive is and why what we do with it is so important. Though I began this week heavy and worked through a lot of it, these words and hearing Jordan and Jackson’s vows yesterday pivoted my head back toward the light. A server tapped me on the shoulder yesterday and asked if the kids sitting with me were mine. “Yes ” I said, worried that I might hear about how they found the chocolate fountain a little earlier than the other wedding guests. “You’ve done a wonderful job.” she told me as I breathed a huge sigh of relief. These little acorns of mine that have blossomed into young trees. How did I get so lucky? A little lighter, I begin this week as the crickets and katydids sing me to sleep. My favorite moment this week? Seeing my brother dance with his daughter to this song…