It’s been two long years since I’ve sat at this table overlooking the Atlantic coast. Well, this is actually a new table, as our beach house was renovated some time during the pandemic. I say our beach house like it’s actually ours, we’ve just been here so many times that it feels like its ours. Every year since I’ve known my wife, her parents have rented a beach house in Cherry Grove, South Carolina for one week of the year. We’ve done this rodeo enough times to have stories to tell, but this year is quite different from the rest.

On average we have about 20 people thumping about in this condo overlooking the ocean within stones throw of the Cherry Grove Pier. My in-laws, my wife and her siblings and all of our offspring under us equates to quite a family tree, all under one roof for seven days. We come this time of year because schools are back in session and the beach is less crowded, not to mention the rates are cheaper than peak season. All of our kids are homeschooled which is what makes this work.

This year though, it’s only the in-laws and my nuclear family, totaling a measly five of us. It’s quiet for a change, which is to my liking. Lindsay and I have always been fortunate to get one of the only rooms that actually overlooks the beach, so whenever I needed to get away from the madness of the crowd I’d just step out onto our own personal balcony and enjoy the dull roar of the waves pounding the shore.

This year there is no madness though, and if I’m honest I miss it in a way. We forewent our beach vacation last year due to covid, so this is our first year back and maybe our last year doing this at all. A lot of the little ones aren’t little anymore and have moved out on their own and it’s not getting any easier or cheaper for my in-laws to organize this whole shebang. So instead of going out with a bang it feels like we’re going out in a bit of a whimper, which is kind of sad.

The overall calm of this trip has allowed me to ingest several books which in other years would have been an impossible task. I read my very first Hemingway novel, The Old Man and the Sea, fitting for this trip, and am now craving more. I’ve also set aside the digital camera and have been taking a lot more pictures with my film cameras. Lastly I’ve been writing a lot more, trying to get the crazy out of my head to make room for the calm. The modus operandi for this trip has been to slow down, enjoy each moment, and to stop putting so much pressure on myself to figure life out. You know, just let it happen, man!

I’ll be turning 41 in about a week and have been feeling a tremendous amount of self inflicted pressure to use the latter half of my life to truly make something of myself. The problem is that I have no idea what that actually looks like. My default in the past has been to bounce from thing to thing, idea to idea, hoping for an easy route to success, but changing gears every time the going gets tough. But I’m learning now that I need to just enjoy the journey and to let the destination be. It seems obvious to me now, but still so difficult to avoid, that living for tomorrow in spite of today is a fool’s pursuit, because tomorrow is only another today which brings another tomorrow after it.

Yes, I’ve got some loose plans and ideas for the future, but I’m really making an effort to enjoying the process of getting there, starting with enjoying some southern fried fun on this here beach. This whole year has been a real turning in my life. When I turned 40 I started to pay attention to what I was doing, how I’ve been living. I’m much more self aware now, which is something I guess. Most importantly though, my whole approach to how I live my life has made a major shift. If I stay on my current trajectory, then 41 should be a good year.

Journal

An Old Man by the Sea