Believing is Better.
It was our first full day on the beach and I see him. Well, first I hear him. He’s workin’ the beach; moving around; taking his message from group to group.
“Hey, hey, you ladies want to party tonight?”
“What’s up guys?! Come on out to Nikky beach tonight. It’s gonna be a party.”
(Said with a “we’re not in the Caribbean, but let’s pretend we are” kind of accent).
I look up from my book. There’s really no need to start reading again since he is so obviously headed our way. And so I wait. And then a most depressing thing happens.
He passes by.
Excuse me? What? Don’t I look like I want to party? I mean, I don’t, but how do you know that? My sister is beautiful and I’m wearing huge sunglasses that conceal the dark circles and cried too many tears this past year eyes and are you kidding me?
Hmph!
Oh well, his loss I think, and then I finish my book and move on to magazines. My sister has Bazaar and the NY Times, but fashion and politics and smart-people stuff is not exactly beach-bum worthy, so I turn to Women’s Health. There’s an article on how sitting actually kills us and I think about the past 24 hours lying on this beach and it scares me into movement.
So I walk. Up and down the beach, I walk. I’ve left my cover-up on the chair, and I will neither confirm nor deny that this was done intentionally. And do you know what I got? For all my effort, 30 minutes of walking? One “Hey.”
I mean yes, less likely of dying from sitting, but still….
One.
Later, having decided I’ve kept death by sitting (or lying) at bay, at least for the day, I start reading again. I click onto Raising Magnolias and I try to answer the previously blogged about question, “do I or don’t I want my children to read this blog someday” and as I read I get a little tickled. It’s embarrassing to laugh at your own writing, but I wasn’t laughing at my humor, I was laughing at my life.
Do you realize how many times I refer to my future husband? Well, me either because I didn’t count, but it’s several. Who am I kidding? Where did all this confidence come from? I have two kids and a dog and I write about my life and he’s gonna know that I can’t cook and I don’t iron and I’ve never even turned on a lawn mower (well, I actually did just this very day, but it ended in a heap of tears and a broken mower and the back yard’s not done and the front yard looks like it was mowed by a 6 year old and I can’t help but think of Ms. Annabelle and how I butchered her yard) and anyway he’s gonna know and the guy didn’t even ask if we wanted to party and I’m lying on the beach wearing a ridiculously small amount of clothing and I only get one “hey.”
I feel a little panic rising up in my throat and I turn to my sister. “Are you aware of the statistics concerning women over 40? You know, about marriage?”
She smiles. “That’s not for you. They aren’t talking about you. That’s for other women.”
And for some reason I believed her.
Because believing is better.
I flip back to my magazine. I try to figure out which pair of jeans is perfect for my body type and I find them but they’re listed at $285 so I’m thinking a slightly less perfect pair will have to do and then I hear him again.
“Hey, hey ladies, you want to party tonight?”
And once again he walks right past us and I look down at the sand and I notice a cup of tea. And I think, “Oh! That’s it.” Those girls have a cooler full of beer and I’m sitting next to a cup of tea and of course, that’s why he didn’t stop.” I mean anyone who drinks rooibos tea on the beach at 2 o’clock in the afternoon is probably not the Nikky beach-type. Right?
And so I told myself, “It’s not that I look forty or act forty or that I give off some kind of ‘I’m a mom and way too old to party and even if I wasn’t a mom and way too old to party, I still wouldn’t want to party, vibe.’ No it wasn’t that at all.”
It was the tea.
And for some reason I believed myself.
Because, again, believing is better.
My Beautiful Sister
Raising Magnolias 