8 Days

I've been avoiding this post for awhile, mostly because I am stubborn and I hate to admit when I have been found wrong, or when my plans have changed, or when I have to face something new and unknown.

Here it is, though.

I don't want to make a huge to-do out of nothing, and I apologize in advance for this being more dramatic than it needs to be.

I have been told I have a flair for exaggeration.

Lovers,

I'm leaving Cannon Beach.

Trust me.  I don't really understand it either, and in light of a post I wrote a few months ago raving about how I never thought I'd leave, it may sound surprising.

It is a surprise, though.  It surprised me about three weeks ago, when I was sitting at Waves of Grain in Tolovana, sipping on a Cafe Au Lait and thinking about life as I knew it.

Thoughts pass in and out of our brains in an exceptionally unpredictable manner, you know?

One second I was thinking about how in that moment, at that little table, in that crowded coffee shop, I was a part of the happiest existence on earth.

The next second, I looked up at Becca and I frowned. "Bek....  I'm going to be in Ireland a lot sooner than I think I am, aren't I?"

"What do you mean?"

I paused.  I stopped.  I looked around me.  I felt an overwhelming sensation rise up. "I'm not supposed to stay here anymore."

Ever since that moment three weeks ago, life has been an insane whirling spectacle of apologies, love, seawater, goodbyes, and magic.

I'm tired.  I'm overworked.  I'm at a standstill and I have no plan to fall back on. I'm scared and excited and nostalgic at the thought of leaving Cannon Beach. Full of regret, full of acceptance.

I'm ready to move on, even if it means saying goodbye to the places and the people who suddenly mean the most to me.

I don't know how they've all done it.  I haven't put them in that place of supreme significance.  If it were up to my awful, selfish, small-minded self I wouldn't have let them touch me with a 10-foot-pole.  I don't make it a habit to trust people.  I don't let people in.

Yet here I am at the end of the summer, saying goodbye to a group of incredible individuals who, over the course of about 4 solid months,have completely changed my life.  They managed to work, and sneak, and weasel their way into the very depths of my cold, cold heart, and for that, I am eternally grateful, because from the inside out they have created heat and warmth and light and I value each and every one of them more than they know.

They are priceless treasures to me.  They have done more for me than most have in my life.

Some of them are responsible for that P.S. I Love You moment.  The one you have to look out for.  The one where suddenly, life as you know it changes, and your eyes are opened.

Some of them are responsible for my newly sharpened sense of adventure.

Most of them are responsible for the priceless gift of reminding me that when I am young, I am young, and there is life to be lived because of it.

All of them are responsible for making me feel loved, valued, cherished,  and because of that I am admittedly a lot less, well, bitchy.

Not that I didn't ever feel loved or cherished before, it's just different this time. I think mostly the whole experience of moving out and being self-dependent has mellowed me out a ton, and when you mix that with new relationships, you get a whole smorgasbord of love and happiness and good, fuzzy feelings.

And all I've got is 8 more days of this town and this lifestyle and these memories and these friends.

I guess I owe it to them to make the next 8 days count for all they're worth.

I'll be home soon, Portland.  And even though I'm going to miss my beach life, I'm excited to come home a new person with a new outlook and a new stockpile of memories to take forward with me.

Things are gonna be different, this time around, babe, and I'm looking forward to the opportunities this move is going to bring me.

I love you,

I love you,

I love you,


Goodbye. <3 br="br">

"You. Me. 5 bucks and good conversation."

Lovers,

Lately I have realized a series of facts that start off with the phrase "There is nothing quite like...." and usually end up with some obscure or obvious declaration on life. 

I would love to say that I've taken to writing them down.

I would also love to say that I recently won the lottery.

So here I am on this beautiful gift of a sunny day, thinking of all my "nothings" and ready and willing to compile them here. 

The most recent one I came up with was "There is nothing quite like watching the stars through a sunroof."

• There is nothing quite like coming home to a bouquet of fresh Sunflowers on your kitchen table.
• There is nothing quite like a morning routine of vanilla soy lattes and a fresh quiche of the day from a local coffee house.
• There is nothing quite like sitting on your new skateboards after a night of skating, quietly talking and rolling and watching the stars with your best friend. 
• There is nothing quite like awkward employee dance parties, in which your 40-something year old boss requests Raise Your Glass by P!nk and proceeds to jump across the dance floor, all by herself, singing all the words with all of her heart, and your spirits lifting at the sight and laughing because even though it's strange and awkward, you really, truly are having an amazing time with coworkers that suddenly turned into friends.
• There is nothing quite like being told that you've made someone proud.
• There is nothing quite like being loved enough to be missed when you're not around.
• There is nothing quite like the Oregon Coast when the sun is shining.
• There is nothing quite like being asked to dance by a 90 year old man named Jordan, when you're in a red HRAP jacket and rainboots, and then being swung around while he gracefully sings Isn't She Sweet just because he's happy to be alive and healthy. 
• There is nothing quite like hearing Hey Jude when you need it the most, when your day was stressful and you're at wits' end. 
• There is nothing quite like a text that says, "Come over to my house," from a friend when he just knows you're feeling sad. 
• There is nothing quite like the combination of sunny days and songs with "na na nas" in the chorus line.
• There is nothing quite like the sound barnacles make when they are circulating water within their tiny systems.
• There is nothing quite like the sound of the word 'enrichment' when you used to work at a zoo. Music to your conservational ears.
• There is nothing quite like receiving a book in the mail from a friend who just wants to share something new with you.
• There is nothing like living your life in the moment, unafraid to fall, unafraid to shame and unafraid to make mistakes. 

Life is full of little tragedies. 

Take them as they are.  Ride your melt. There is nothing quite like being alive.

Sorrow

Sorrow comes in waves.

Sometimes she slips in through the back door, with the barn cat, or with the pitter patter of little feet tracking mud all throughout the house.

In all of the commotion, she enters quietly, unnoticed, and slides deftly into the old walls, into the creak of the floor.

Sometimes I see her staring back at me through the eyes of a loved one.

I want to yell and scream and claw her out of her possession over the defenseless body, torn in pieces and weak from sleep-deprivation, but suddenly she's gone again.

And then I feel her in the thick, misty air that hovers over the sea.  As I walk, as I sit, as I look around me, I breathe her heaviness into my own lungs.

I am fighting a battle I cannot win.

Today, sorrow is everywhere my constant companion.

This morning I could taste her despair in my vanilla soy latte.

I sat in my car with my breakfast, overlooking cliffs and sea stacks and grey, grey ocean, and I saw her in the eyes and felt her in the hands of a beautiful friend who stumbled upon me.  I wanted to cry as I looked in his eyes and could see the fresh pain of a million looming goodbyes he'll have to make in a few short weeks.

I don't know when I'll see him again.

Again at work she struck me when I received a text from Becca, who is beginning to say her goodbyes to a beloved grandmother- a body riddled and racked with tumors.

The text read, "It is sad here."

I closed my eyes, and could feel sorrow's deathlike grip surrounding Bek and her family, leaking into the picture frames on their mantle, and flowing underneath the door frames into all the many rooms of that huge, empty house.

I felt sorrow creep into my own cancerous memories.

And now, I sit on a beach I never wanted, that has somehow become the only one that truly belongs to me, overlooking sand and stone and set after set of slate-colored waves.

The pelicans and the scoters and the gulls all fly in a frenzy, feeding and squawking and pressing their wings against the endless sky.

Sorrow sits next to me, compelling me to a time of pen-to-paper, a time of powerful reflection, a time of slowing down.

Goodbyes weigh down my heart and sit awkwardly in my chest cavity.

I lift my eyes and scan the beach up and down desperately, seeking something- anything- a familiar face or name to rescue me from this battleship destined to sink.

But there is no one.

I am alone.

And when I am alone, sorrow quietly grabs my hand and whispers in my ear:

"It's okay.  You and I will always be together."

I nod my head, no longer fighting back tears, and rest wearily on her shoulder.

Somewhere, a lonely, black-eyed gull tumbles into the pounding surge.

And sorrow smiles.