Beach Therapy

8:23 AM

When you walk up to me what do you see? Are you looking for food, or do you wonder at the exhaustion that covers my appearance as I take my morning trek on the shores of your home?

Do you know I come here to breathe? Do you know the suffocation that awaits at home? The constant screams of fractured minds; once discarded children I’ve embraced as my own.

“Mommy, love me. Mommy, fill me. Mommy, be everything I need so that I can know that I do exist and that I am worth being alive.”

"Are you my mommy forever?

How do I fill you, little ones, when caring for you has shown me how little self-worth I possess myself? Discarded and used as a child, like you, I find my purpose has crumbled beneath the crashing waves on the shore.

You, my yellow-masked bandit, are a breath of fresh air as you seek to unravel my appearance into something that satisfies your curiosity.

Yellow-masked bandit, you are a breath of fresh air amidst my worn-down soul. Capturing the essence of you was a gift. A gift from our Creator who makes all things beautiful in His time.

Even me.

9:00 AM

You look alive, yet no breath in you remains. A surprise to everyone who walks by until they notice you don’t flee. Who staged you so carefully in the sand, all your claws intact, looking full of life?

I wonder, do you resemble me?

A familiar jogger runs by with the wave of a hand and a grin on her face. I greet her with the same pasted-on smile.

“How are you doing?” she asks, briefly in step with my pace.

“Good,” I answer. “How about you?”

“Great,” she says and moves on.

Crouching to the ground, I set my iPhone towards you and shoot.

You are dead, but look alive.

I am alive, but feel dead inside.

I wonder about the familiar jogger’s response. “Do you really feel that way? Great? Or, like me, do you really feel like you want to crawl into a hole and die.”

A life caring for hurting children is hard. Their wounded minds bleed onto me until, like this crab, there is no more life.

Or so it seems. For the story isn’t over yet. A beautiful life promised to me by the ONE who delivered them to my door and called me to love and care for them has yet to be fulfilled.

I still have hope.

11:05 AM

"Take me with you!" I whisper on the other side of my lens as I snap shot after shot, capturing your breathtaking beauty as you soar the white tips of the waves without a care in the world.

You know your destiny.

You know your purpose.

And with each majestic sunrise over the Atlantic peace, you reach toward your destiny with an unquenchable zest.

At night, you tuck your head beneath your wing to rest. Sleep wherever pelicans sleep at night. With no regret. You have no mental list of failures for the day that plague your mind at the descent of darkness. Useless baggage that weighs you down the next morning.

“No. You didn’t hug your child after he punched you in the eye,” my mind whispers to me as if another person shares my brain seething with condemnation.

You didn’t say, “I love you,” when you tucked your other child in bed. Still stinging from the broken ceiling lights and fan his little rage-filled body attacked with a vengeance as he screamed over and over, “I HATE YOU!’

Where will I get the money to replace this as well as the other items, walls, toys that have been attacked in the same way?

I do love you, son. But right now, I’m just tired. And empty. I need to commune with my Creator at the beach. I need to be replenished.

“SNAP” I capture another picture, a work of art that I don’t have to actively search out.

IT FINDS ME!

I move on.

7:38 AM

Do you see the beauty? The way the rising sun glistens off the rubbery sticky skin?

Very much dead, yet oh, so beautiful. Nature’s art crafted by The Crafter.

As I turn to capture the light of the rising sun, focus, and shoot, I think, I am that jellyfish. Not alive but still reflecting light. My journey’s not yet finished, as is yours. I have only hit a hard patch of sand, like a sugary trail when mountain biking through the woods of some Florida Beachtown.

Patches of sand called “sugar” by trail bikers slow your pace. But they don’t last.

It weighs the rider down, holds him back. But he keeps on going.

And amidst the journey that has drained the life from my very soul are glimpses of what is still to come. Splashes of light. Glimmers of hope. A fulfilling life.

For my children and me.

7:15 AM

Message in a bottle. This is what I found this day, and, no, it’s not an animal. Not wildlife. But yes, it does fit into my beach therapy.

I saw it stranded on the sand and ran quickly to discover my find before anyone else got to it first.

My heart raced. What if it was a cry for help?

I imagined some woman being held as a sex slave on a ship, stranded out to sea. Yes, caring for abused and neglected children does something to one's imagination. I was almost afraid to open it.

Tucking it in my pocket, I jogged on, deciding to wait until I got home to read what was inside.

Seeing my house in sight, I swerved into my driveway, slammed my car into park, and rushed into the house.

I grabbed a knife and started peeling away the wax. I pulled out the cork and peeked inside. Dang! Paper balled up that my fingers could not grasp and pull out. I needed something... Tweezers! There! I squeezed the tweezers and poked at the paper, grasped a corner, and pulled. It came out.

In pieces!

After ten minutes of digging inside the tiny opening, I pulled out a dozen strips of paper. Darn! Whatever was written on the note was then torn into a dozen pieces. I’d have to piece them together like a puzzle.

About 15 minutes later, I discovered that the message in a bottle was someone’s past hurts and wounds that they were mentally giving back to the one who injured them. They wrote out their feelings on paper and then ripped it up, buried it deep inside a bottle, sealed it with wax, and tossed it into the sea. Finally, (hopefully) freeing themself from all the torment their memories gave them.

It seems that I am not the only one who goes to the beach for therapy. It is here that I can commune with my Creator and all of His creation. It is here where I can send my invisible tears out to sea just like the sender of this message in a bottle. And it is here where I get to be visited by beautiful glimpses of nature and LIFE and know that my story isn't over yet. The beauty God intended for my family and me is still being fashioned into something glorious.

I wonder what awaits me tomorrow as I trek the Florida shores with my iPhone in hand, ready to capture another adventure.