Bent Not Broken
I left all of this behind for a weekend to go to Charleston, South Carolina to have some therapy and fun with some of my very all time, top of the list, holding nothing back because I know they love me, friends.
I got on a plane and I flew across the country and spent the next few days just basking in the glory of beautiful places, good food, the silence in conversation that is only possible when there are no children around, and the people. Yes, these people.
The kinds of people who will do yoga on the beach with you, and just roll with it. The kinds of people who will do crazy jumps, and wild dances, all on a public beach all while filming everything, just in case we wanted the footage someday. This picture makes us look like any of the other tourists who were out there on that cloudy, windy day, but it doesn't show the wild antics that would follow immediately after. It's no wonder that even in our 30s people kept thinking we were college kids on spring break.
All while visiting the kind of place that will have your name scratched into the cement of the sidewalk, like a magical message from the universe.
And as we talked, and ate, and jumped, and danced, and yoga-ed, and walked and explored and laughed and laughed and sometimes cried our way through that weekend, we also healed each other. Or, more accurately I should say, they began to help heal me, and I hope that in our talks we all found a little bit of healing for the aches and hurts we had accumulated in life.
As I sat on the airplane flying home, I wrote down these thoughts.
"I had been so focused on all the ways I felt broken over the past year that it became easy to forget that other people struggle in ways I know nothing about, pain I have been completely spared. As we talked over the weekend, laughing and sharing and crying, I felt healing as they helped me remember that we are all a little bit bent, but none of us are truly broken. I am not alone - and my struggles aren't even the hardest, scariest ones out there."
And then, luckily, amazingly blessed girl that I am, I got to come home to this:
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I got on a plane and I flew across the country and spent the next few days just basking in the glory of beautiful places, good food, the silence in conversation that is only possible when there are no children around, and the people. Yes, these people.
The kinds of people who will do yoga on the beach with you, and just roll with it. The kinds of people who will do crazy jumps, and wild dances, all on a public beach all while filming everything, just in case we wanted the footage someday. This picture makes us look like any of the other tourists who were out there on that cloudy, windy day, but it doesn't show the wild antics that would follow immediately after. It's no wonder that even in our 30s people kept thinking we were college kids on spring break.
All while visiting the kind of place that will have your name scratched into the cement of the sidewalk, like a magical message from the universe.
And as we talked, and ate, and jumped, and danced, and yoga-ed, and walked and explored and laughed and laughed and sometimes cried our way through that weekend, we also healed each other. Or, more accurately I should say, they began to help heal me, and I hope that in our talks we all found a little bit of healing for the aches and hurts we had accumulated in life.
As I sat on the airplane flying home, I wrote down these thoughts.
"I had been so focused on all the ways I felt broken over the past year that it became easy to forget that other people struggle in ways I know nothing about, pain I have been completely spared. As we talked over the weekend, laughing and sharing and crying, I felt healing as they helped me remember that we are all a little bit bent, but none of us are truly broken. I am not alone - and my struggles aren't even the hardest, scariest ones out there."
And then, luckily, amazingly blessed girl that I am, I got to come home to this:
And some attempts at yoga in my own living room. Not much like the beaches in South Carolina, with the soothing waves as background noise, but there is something pleasant about the every day background noise of my regular life, too.
And seriously, who is supposed to be in charge of cleaning up all that mess? Oh, is it time to adult again?
Oh, you. Making me laugh and cry. I'm so glad you got to have that vacation.
ReplyDeleteAnd slightly jealous of your college experience that was so, so different from mine.