Flagler Beach
I last stood on this beach in January 2001. It’s funny how sights, sounds, and smells can take you right back to a pivotal moment in your life, isn’t it? That January marked one year since I overdosed on two bottles of pills that very easily could have killed me. We’ve visited this before here in my blog. It was a very dark time for me. The new millennium dawned with the implosion of a twenty-year marriage and was the zenith of a seven-year bout of severe clinical depression. Now it doesn’t even feel like it was my life, really.
I stepped onto this beach yesterday and instantly remembered the morning I came here sixteen years ago. It was cold and a dense pea-soup fog had settled over Flagler Beach with no real promise of sun to burn it off. Foghorns called from the surf I could not see. I remember sitting down in the damp sand, absentmindedly sifting the uniquely colored red grains through my fingers. I sat there for the longest time, thinking over how far I had come in that past year. I had no idea how far I had yet to go before I could safely say it was over.
Grief comes in different packages. That particular year, I was still grieving the loss of my maternal grandmother the year before. Add to that the loss of my marriage, the tearing apart of my family unit, the overdose itself, and the resulting year of gruelling therapy and I was pretty battle-weary. I sat on the sand and cried, breathing in big gulps of salty sea air. I hadn’t grown to the point back then where I was sure I’d be ok or that, God forbid, I was better off without him. No…that realization came much later.
Yesterday, the sun was shining in a nearly cloudless sky. It was warm and inviting. I could see far out to the horizon where I spotted a white boat bobbing in the surf. I walked a long way up the beach, feeling the soft sand give way under my feet. I came upon a state park (Gamble Rogers) and picked up a brochure for camping next year when I bring TOW-Wanda down. I smiled as I folded the brochure and tucked it in my pocket. If you would have told me sixteen years ago what I’d be doing in 2017, I would never in a million years have believed it. This beach is like the doorway of your kitchen where you mark how much your children have grown…only for me it marks my emotional growth. I’ve lived a hundred lifetimes since the first time I stepped into the fog on Flagler Beach. I’ve lost and found love and lost again…several times since then. Walking through my current grief journey puts the pain I felt on that cold January day into perspective. There are all kinds of grief, but grief is grief and it all needs to be worked through in its own time. It’s just nice to have a measuring stick to see how you’re doing once in a while. ❤️
“…I have heard your prayer and seen your tears; I will heal you…” 2 Kings 20:5 NIV