The light of Dawn

This post brought to you by stream-of-consciousness writing. I was sitting on the beach one day with my journal. I looked up and saw two girls laying on the cliffs above me...and this piece just came to me. A few minutes later, Mel came along and snapped this candid photo of me writing. It captures the essence of my life perfectly right now.

She won.

It was a cheap, tarnished, lie of a trophy, but technically, she won.

If there were a ref in the game of life (some call that ref God or Karma, but where is the instant gratification in that?), she would have been booted out of the game for subterfuge or unsportsmanlike conduct. The game would have been called on account of rain, on account of the storm of duplicity, dishonesty, and destruction she left in her path. In his, too.

Naively I was floating along in the summer sun, surrounded by beach haze, evening baseball games, and local craft beer. I didn't even know I was supposed to be playing a game. And if I had...I didn't know how to play by those rules...or rather, lack thereof. If it had occurred to me that I had to win him, I still would not have disregarded my virtue to reign triumphant. What's the point of a victory tainted by trickery?

A trophy that doesn't shine with the light of integrity has no real value.

And so she rode off into the sunset with him on a foundation of lies, schemes, and dissonance. His noble steed indeed.

I stood alone, looking out at the ocean, pondering the colors of the sunset, the polarity of all things. Thanking God I never learned to play that way.

To the victor goes the spoils.

And to the loser--me--came solitude, the beauty of the setting sun, and the magic of the dawn yet to come.

Life 2.0

A reader messaged me and said she missed my blog. And it got me thinking...so do I.

But is blogging even a thing anymore?

I guess it depends on the purpose. But the message came at an interesting time, as I had literally been thinking about blogging as I lay on the beach yesterday.

That's where I am in life. Lying (laying? I can never remember) on the beach contemplating life. I've lived in the same place for two years, and relocation has been on my mind. I looked at a place in my same beach town today, but there's something that feels akin to settling when I think about moving into a dark, 800 square-foot studio. Sure, it comes with a  newly remodeled kitchen and boasts granite counter tops, yet it lacks room for my mountain bikes and off-street parking and would suck up $1400 a month and a piece of my soul. No thanks. I'll keep my townhouse with ample storage, poor insulation, and a shared wall with a neighbor who just might have a peephole somewhere, we're not sure.

But this is me now. Have spent the last 12 years at the same job, thinking about changing that, thinking about continuing to love that. Longing for some sort of life change that leads me to believe I might be having a mid-life crisis. Am I midlife now? I'm not sure, but at least my butt hasn't started to sag.

I'm not sure what in my life I want to change (definitely not the non-saggy butt, I worked hard for this squat booty!), but I'm ready for something new and exciting. Maybe I'm waiting for God to speak to me through a burning bush like in the old days even though He doesn't seem to do that in modern times except maybe through a sunset or a good Enya song.

And even then it's open to interpretation. It's all about perspective. As Emerson says, "People do not seem to realize that their opinion of the world is also an expression of their character."

I see the sun rise through palm trees as I run my daily 5 on the beach each morning. I drink green juice and smoothies and avoid gluten. I watch the sunset over the water at dog beach almost every night. It's a mile walk and sometimes I have to carry Hank. Sometimes I make new friends, sometimes I keep to myself. Most times, though, I've learned to say YOLO (you only live once) to new things and have random and fun adventures. Sometimes my responsible friends yell at me and tell me I need to think more about my choices (like going rock climbing to a deserted beach while barefoot in a bikini in Cabo with a random local is a poor choice?) but I'm not dead yet so...nah?


And yes. I'm single. I've been divorced for 2 years. I have gone on countless dates, quasi-seriously dated 2 different boys (though neither made it as far as being Facebook official) but have yet to find a guy that has makes me want to settle down. In fact I recently stated that I'm out of the dating game. It's lasted 4 days so far. It's hard to know exactly how much to reveal about my dating life on a public blog (ahem, secret dating blog). Because I don't know who will end up reading this.

My old readers? New readers? My mom? No one?

Who cares. It feels good to be writing again.