Day Thirteen - The Many Moods of the Sea and Me

A huge thunderstorm just passed through and it was FAN-FREAKING-TASTIC!!! I was hoping for one good storm while I was here and I just got it. I've spent the last few hours watching it come and go. I bopped down to the beach earlier this afternoon and it was perfectly sunny and beautiful. Within an hour things were a-changin'. I looked out to the sea and it was cloudy but still lovely...

Then I turned 180 degrees looking back towards the condo complex and I saw this...

I booked it back to the condo...

And this is what ensued...

Keep in mind that this was 4:15 in the afternoon....


The anger started to pass...


And this is what it looks like now - close to recovery...


It was amazing!. It's all so very Nights in Rodanthe. The beach. The storm. The angst. The inner turmoil....too bad I'm not as hot as Diane Lane and that no Richard Gere-esque guy has shown up! All I've had is Weird Sitting Guy and the contractors across the courtyard that like to strike up conversations with me every time I pass by.

I don't consider myself a particularly angry person - or explosive or even moody - but I could really relate to the ebb and flow of emotion in the storm. How it builds slowly, explodes and then brings itself back to the range of neutral. How normal it is in the course of life and that it's okay. It's important for me to remember that because my instincts are always to squash any perceived "negative" emotions or reactions and always be "okay" in front of everybody. I'm not always okay. In fact, I probably haven't been okay in a very long time. But I'm finding my way and that feels good.

On to other news...

Weird Sitting Guy left last weekend for good it seems. With all of his weird sitting I was beginning to think that maybe he lives here. Who goes to the ocean for a week and sits on the end of their bed for hours on end? He never once went out on his balcony and looked at the ocean. Not once. I tried to take a picture of him just sitting, on what turned out to be his last night here, but my camera sucks so it's not clear at all. It just looks like a lit up condo amongst the darkened ones, but he's there...sitting...

Emma update: She is now nearly fully-recovered. Still some congestion and she is easily fatigued but back in school full-swing and heading down here on Saturday!! I'm SO excited to see her and hug her and go to the beach with her and just love on her.

I've continued the pursuit of my old creative self while I've been here. I've known for a long time now that I am very stuck - blocked - and I just thought I was a terribly lazy loser. It was terrifying to me to put myself out there and just start creating - just frickin', cotton-pickin', stop whining, get off my ass, GET MY SHIT TOGETHER, just DO it already - start creating!!! Dammit.

Well, I finished six cards today and they turned out kinda cute. I'm not brave enough to post pics of my stuff yet but I sure did have fun making them. It felt so great to get past that first hurdle and now I have all sorts of ideas of other things I want to try. It's so much fun and I feel so happy and proud of myself.

There was a quote in my reading today that really helped me a lot: "Do not call the inability to start, 'laziness'. Call it fear."

Once I could identify it that way I felt instantly empowered. For some reason right now, I find it easier to stand up to simple fear rather than to the idea that I am, at my core, essentially a lazy person and therefore a bit hopeless. I can stand up to fear - I've been doing it for a long time now and in the past couple of years I've gotten better and better at it. I will get braver as I go I hope. There's still a lot of me to discover and I'm beginning to enjoy the journey.