A year by the sea

Sunday marked the one year anniversary of buying the shore house. I woke up tired, going back and forth about going down to the beach to watch the sunrise or staying in bed. I usually go once a weekend, and Saturday was rainy...but it was so nice to lay there in the dark in an off-season silent sea town on a Sunday morning...then I remembered how I felt a year ago, and how I couldn't go to sleep because I was so excited to get up to watch the sunrise on the beach from my own house.

I got up, and I'm glad I did as always. I noticed how different the ocean looked from yesterday afternoon, and how lucky I was to see so many different faces of this ocean over the past year. I thought a lot about what this past year has meant to me. It has meant and been so many things. Euphoric highs as I cruised down the Atlantic City Expressway late at night, Bruce Springsteen blaring; hard knocks, when I learned something the hard way in a year of home improvements; the absolute joy of having a place for all of my beach stuff where I can leave it and never bring it home; a deep, deep appreciation for those who helped us out along the way with hard labor and those who understand when we aren't places we would normally be or doing things we'd normally do; minor anxiety with a dose of humility and a side of lessons in patience, kindness, and live and let live from a year dealing with renters; the security in knowing I never need to leave my dogs home; the great feeling of sharing this space with framily. It has been amazing with the highs far outweighing the lows. It has all been so, so worth any frustration or worry I've felt along the way.

It's also felt like living a double life - at a certain point in the summer, I really felt like my real life was down there, and that my life at home was the part time life even though that is definitely not the reality...yet, anyway. I still feel that way because I love the off-season much more than the summer. It's like living in the Boys of Summer song: nobody on the road, nobody on the beach. Regardless, sometimes I feel like I'm having an out of body experience, watching myself do things in my normal life but with a sense that I belong somewhere else.

If I could go back in time one year, I'd tell myself that it would be different, watching those sunrises now, but in all good ways: I have a beach cruiser to ride down now, and I bring my coffee and a mat and I have a little bag everything goes in. But that feeling of waking up at my own shore house to see it? That is the same. It does not get old. It does not go unnoticed or unappreciated.

And if I could go into the future, to next year and the year after and on to infinity, it would be to give myself a nudge - to make sure I'm still grateful, that I still remember what a dream comes true feels like, even if we had weather issues that took a toll on the house or renters that drove us insane that year.

I'd also tell my past self to chill the fuck out and that everything would be fine. Hell, I'd tell my future self that too because you can never tell yourself that enough. We were fully rented for this summer by the end of January and really had a great first season. People treated our house well and they were nice. And we're already booked for four weeks for next summer before the end of October.

I went back and forth with writing this, because it's hard to convey how life changing this has been, not only on the outside with what we do and where we spend time, but on the inside with how I think in my head and feel in my heart. In the end I didn't want to let such a first anniversary go without putting words down for myself to look back on. If you enjoyed it too, that's a bonus.

VRBO listing

This post is a part of the back to blogging challenge on Alyssa's blog. 

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