The Storm Rages On – November 6, 2021

The storm rages on and so does my body. There’s a certain solace in knowing I can’t go down to the beach today. So I let my body rest. How great is it that I can see the waves crashing as I look through the sliding glass doors? Having this to look at, right out my window, from my bed is priceless. I knew there may be days like this when I would be battling pain. At home there is no consolation prize. Here, there is.

For the first time during this trip, I turn on the tv in the bedroom and try to find a movie. You may be thinking, who needs a movie when you have an ocean view? Today, I do. I’m in desperate need of the distraction. Did I tell you it is a Smart TV? We do not have one of these at home. Therefore, I am thoroughly confused by it. I figure out how to turn it on and that’s as far as I get. Paul and I spend the next 30 minutes trying to figure out how it works. Eventually I find a movie channel and I let it play three consecutive films while I eat macaroni and cheese in bed for lunch and keep telling myself I should get up. My body finally cooperates with my inner dialogue around 1:00 pm when I get up and take a shower, then move to the living room couch for more movie watching. It becomes clear I will not do much of anything today.

We listen to the gale force winds outside as we watch the raging tide wash over the dunes, higher and higher, throwing large logs and debris along the shore. Having a front row seat to a storm like this is cool.

One of the movies I watch is called Hideaway featuring Josh Lucas as the main character. Who doesn’t love him in Sweet Home Alabama? The scene on the beach where he asks her why she wants to marry him and she says, “So I can kiss you anytime I want.” Sigh. So yeah, I’ll watch a film with Mr. Lucas any day. This is a mediocre movie, but he gives a great performance of a guy who is coping with the tragic loss of his family. He buys a clunker sailboat that’s moored in Grand Traverse Bay, a deep bay of Lake Michigan and sets about trying to get it fixed up and running. In between sanding the deck, tinkering with the motor, and repairing the sails, he gets sidetracked with drowning his sorrows in booze. Each time we think he’s on the road to getting the ship out of the harbor, a new bottle of Jack Daniels arrives. I can relate the inner tug of war he is experiencing, and we can assume there’s a fair amount of self blame and turmoil. But he’s out there on the wide-open water, in the winter, pretty much alone, wrestling with his demons, making his mistakes and forging ahead. Perhaps the growth is in the process. We do what we must to get to the other side.

Being hard on myself is a terrible past time of mine. On days like this when my nervous system is on overdrive, I chastise myself. I’m convinced I’ve overdone it, that I’ve done more than my body is capable of and have put myself in this place of non-functioning. The reality of this illness is there is rarely a cause and effect and trying to figure out the “why’s” is like trying to walk on a sheet of ice.

Sometimes, in fact, I have overdone it and I will pay the price. It’s all a balancing act. And then there are those times, more than I’d like to admit, I’ll throw caution to the wind and do what I know is not good for me. Like I’ve done a fair amount of here. But I do it anyway. Some days I still wonder if I made a mistake deciding to come here for three months. All we can do is make the best decision in the moment.

“She needs wide open spaces, room to make her big mistakes.”

-Dixie Chicks

Like Josh Lucas in Hideaway, I need my wide-open space, here on the edge of the mighty Atlantic, to take my chances, to learn, to grow and to make my big mistakes.