Taking a vacation isn’t easy when you work for yourself—taking time off, even to stay at home, costs an unbelievable amount. I put this trip off the last two years. Projects pile up, I feel constantly behind, and it never seems like I’m in a secure enough place to justify time to rest, let alone travel for a non-work reason.
When Lilo got cancer, however, all I could think of was how I’d robbed her of this trip last year. I didn’t take this vacation for me. This was her trip to celebrate her recovery, but I knew I personally needed time to reset. But it was so much harder than I thought. I don’t know why I assumed that the trip would automatically put me into some zombie vacation brain where I could easily zone out and relax. It took every bit of me not to check email, send out a bid, reassure a client, schedule a shoot, etc, whenever we had down time. So I made myself sit on the beach, not trusting myself to be in the hotel room near my laptop.
The ocean has always made me feel small. Some people feel this way when they look up at the stars. I look up and feel wonder, a desire to travel, an abundance of questions, an excitement about all I don’t know. It’s the ocean that reminds me how tiny I am—its mass, its power, its impersonal coldness, the way it grinds everything away. The beautiful, calm beach is just evidence of its patient destruction, its eroding grasp: proof that nothing is permanent. But even it, in all its power, gathers itself up for the moon, only relaxing when she’s out of view. There’s something so beautiful about something as powerful and destructive as the ocean being drawn upwards and held by the moon. Low tide always feels like the sea is holding its breath for her.
There are always things that tug at us, pushing and pulling at us like tides, forcing us to hold our breath and wait. If the ocean is constrained, then I shouldn’t feel guilty that I am too. I wish I could just relax, turn off my brain and take a week without feeling torn, instead of feeling the pull of what has been happening, what has to happen (or else) in the coming weeks, what might happen, etc, all rolling underneath the current.
Sitting in front of the waves, though, even the desire to be critical about my inability to relax felt small. That is what I love about the sea and how I feel before it. I feel checked, and if I’m not leaving the shore rested, I am recalibrated, and that’s enough.
This vacation was hard. Lilo playing in the waves was magical, but resting was difficult. But this is me at low tide. It’s been a hard year and it’s going to get harder. I don’t need to relax. I’m holding my breath, drawing myself upwards and waiting. A revolution will happen, though. The tension will release, and all that was past, is present, and is heading my way will be worn away. I just need to trust the tides and know that it will come. This year will ebb away, and the things within it will be worn down into a beach I can sit on while I measure my breath with the rhythm of the crashing waves.
