Where the Sun Kisses the Water

It was just a normal Thursday. Well, as normal as a Thursday can be when you are on a July vacation with your family to the emerald coastline of Florida. It had been drizzling a misty rain that late morning but that was not going to stop the three of us from enjoying our last final day in what I kept calling 'paradise'.

On our way to have one final adventure, we had decided to stop for a light lunch. It felt like it was a place meant for just the three of us as we pulled up and read "Finn's" on the surfboard sign hanging from the makeshift wooden archway leading to an unknown, tropical hideaway. You could see the sign lit up by the joy radiating from Finn's hazel eyes. He could not believe that there, right down the road from our condo, was a taco truck that donned the same spelling as his exact biological name. Finn kept stammering with such excitement "I can't believe they named this place after me!". It was as though the owners had heard of Finn's heroics in Indiana and chose to capture his essence in the creation of their most prized establishment in Bay County. Somehow, an eccentric taco truck connected to a cozy, coffee shop just felt like the perfect place to be on a misty, Floridian Thursday. Had it not already felt like we had hit the jackpot, it sure enough did when we found t-shirts with vinyl decals that had the word 'Finn' decorated across each colored shirt in the bookshelves at the end of the coffee bar. His hazel eyes said the most without a word being spoken, and there we collected a shirt for each of us as though we were collecting the winning lottery numbers. With our three shirts, a coffee milkshake, and a special coffee mug in hand only for Finn, himself- we strolled out of that magical, tropical hideaway and on to our next adventure. Little did I know, this next stop would alter my brain chemsitry for the rest of my days.

Intrusive thoughts plague my mind every waking hour of each day. It has been like that for as long as I can remember in my 34 years. I do not know exactly when they started or truly how they even began. I guess trauma is funny like that. It does not really care about the timelines or the exact points of damaging its intended victims. Anxiety, depression, guilt, shame, fear of abandonment- those are just a few of my demons. Sprinkle in intrusive thoughts and you have the perfect recipe for individual torture.

Winter was coming to an end and I believed I was on some sort of awakening, healing journey. If winter was coming to an end, I guess it was time for my pain to take a hike as well. I hate winter but the thing about my pain, I have grown accustomed to it. So I wasn't entirely certain if I was even ready to let it go yet. Yet, there I was feeling as though I was ready to hit the road on this healing journey. The kind of journey where I could do it on my own. Not rely on the insights of anyone else to determine just how screwed up I was, or what I needed to do in order to 'fix' me. I was broken. Something inside of me felt shattered beyond any repair. Instead of burdening those who would not, could not, understand this pain to the level I felt I needed for true understanding- I was going to do it alone. Naivity is a strong suit of mine. Following behind closely, stubborness, fear, and denial. My healing journey felt like I was being torn apart from the inside out. I heard that growth and pain generally can feel the same. What I was feeling- it felt like 34 years of trauma being released and felt in one gut-wrenching, trivial moment. One life altering moment that took me from "this doesn't feel great", to complete and utter rock bottom.

I am not even ceratin if words can truly describe rock bottom. I guess for those of us who have been there, it is a different moment for each. A different event that leads us there. I envision that the pain feels essentially the same. Being faced with your truest fears in the most realest of moments. No longer intrusive thoughts and very much true reality. My reality was sitting passenger side of a Jeep Grand Cherokee watching my husband shrug his shoulder as a response to whether staying married was still an option for us, while my child sat idly by in the back seat. I was transported to being my son's age and watching my parents have the exact same conversation. Conversations I grew up hearing over and over and over again until they finally just stopped. Maybe they stopped becasuse I left home. Or maybe those conversations no longer held a power over me where I would have to face the consequence. Whatever it was, at some point the conversations stopped but the trauma clung tight to my lungs as I sat speechless driving throug the back roads going back to my home. The place of safety I had created. Where conversations like that did not exist in that safe haven. There it was crumbling before my eyes- my safety. Every memory, every fight, every moment I was thrust in to the middle of my parents decision to stay or leave. Here I was doing the exact same thing to my son. The person I was supposed to protect from the very moments that I promised to never let happen. I walked through the threshold of my safe haven and felt my heart crumbling like ash. I no longer felt safe in my own home. I no longer felt like the protector but the monster bringing the wrath. I could no longer fight the demons of my past becasue I had now become them. As I had done many times as a child when escaping from the wrath of my parents rage against one another- I hid in my room, under the weighted covers of my bed. This time though, I screamed out a pain that was so guttural that no amount of medicine could fix.

Our adventure led us from a magical hideaway to the local State Park. Upon arrival, I thought surely this was not a mistake, was it? Standing in the main building, at the entrance of the park, surrounded by encasements of taxidermy animals and fake plants- this was not the adventure I thought we were having. What is an adventure if you do not stumble across a few obstacles, right? Or was that my way of trying my best in a difficult situation. Taxidermy, although educational, is most definitely an obstacle for me. So we travel on around the winding curves and wooded roads. Each of us squinting our eyes to spy whatever little forest animal that we may be able to find. As if we are the first to spot a creature, we will win a prize. Little hidden trails surrounding us on both sides of the road. It was not until we reached the sign marked ROCKS ahead that I felt some sort of connection to this place. Something inside of me was reacting to this little green road sign and I felt as though I was being ushered into some great unknown. My soul was being pulled. Or was it that I was detoxing from the antidepressants I had been on for the last 4 months- only to find out I was allergic. Whatever, it was- detox or fate- I was being pulled.

When we pulled up to the parking lot, it was just a sea of cars on asphalt with winding cement sidewalks leading beyond grass covered sand dunes. I had no idea where they led or what the rocks sign even meant. All I knew was that Finn and Ethan were too far behind and I had to get to where I needed to go. So it was time for them to hurry up or be left behind. We passed through a small commissary store in the middle of the pathway. It was not as enticing as the coffee shop because they did not have anything labeled Finn. I was in a full Dorothy moment, but my yellow brick road was sand covered cement lined with grass and trickled with other swimsuit clad people coming and going. With my cowardly lion and tin man in tow. We had just a few more feet but I felt myself holding my breath filled with hopeful skeptiscism. I had not forgotten about the taxidermy. So hope and disappointment were hand in hand. When we finally reached the opening to the beach below, I felt this immediate release. The clouds had opened up and the sun was kissing the tops of the water- and I had to dip my toe in. The rocks were to the left of the sun kissed water, separating a gaggle of boats from the pods of people enjoying the water. The rocks extended out just far enough that you would wonder what lurked beyond. They acted as a slippery walk way enticing you to go out and discover what was beyond there. Ethan and Finn shimmied down that walkway seeing just how far they could go. I had other plans. I could not wait any longer to get baptized in that water. The water was cyrstal clear. It was as if standing in the water and looking down you could see clearly. No distortion of any kind. Schools of fish swam around you as if you were not an enemy or anything to be feared but a play mate. And as if my soul had not been filled to the brim, Finn had followed me into the water and was clinging to my side when just out of reach, a dolphin jumped out of the water. I looked at Finn's freckled cheeks, the water droplets glistening off of his eyelashes and the sun glistening like flecks of gold in his beautiful eyes. His little body clung to mine and there we stood waist deep in the water that looked like glass, and we watched one of life's miracles leap out of the water. There in that moment, I wept. I had never felt peace so profoundly. And yet, my soul was overflowing because I knew that it could be different for me. For that day I learned that even in my darkness, I can hold light within me. I am not made to only hold guilt and shame and hurt but that I can hold love and hope, as well.

I am not the monster.

I am not ash and dust.

I am where the sun kisses the water, in moments where the water kisses his freckles. I am in the gold flecks of his hazel eyes when the sun hits them just right. He is my miracle.