I sit on a white sand beach staring at the turquoise blue water, a breeze stroking my face, tousling my artfully messy short hair into even more of a mess. I'm in a place I consider to be my favourite in the world and I'm feeling more present in myself than I've felt in several years.
It is always near the water that I do my best thinking. It's like it blows away all the superficial thoughts and worries and as I contemplate the vast and awesome nature of the ocean as it shifts and breaks, I'm able to see truths that are invisible to me at other times.
I have changed.
The past 4 years have been constant transformation as my long term marriage became non-monogamous and we began to get to know ourselves, to investigate and evaluate our needs and wants without restrictions in a way we hadn't in a very long time. It was a time of intense exploration and I learned a lot of important lessons in a very short while about who I am at this point in my life.
My 30s were about coasting. We focused on getting solid in our jobs and having some travel adventures and our relationship continued business as usual without much in the way of shifting gears. We'd been together for a decade and it seemed like we knew who and where we were and that was going to continue exactly that way for the years to come. My 40s have been anything but consistent and there is much I love about that. I've had adventures I couldn't have dreamed of in the past but there are definitely times I could use more business as usual.
A big chapter of my new life has concluded and I feel like I need to do something to signify that conclusion. In reality, that part of my life ended nearly a year ago but it has taken me this long to get to beyond struggling against that ending. To get beyond merely accepting that ending but to a place where I could embrace it and be finally free to move on without half of me stuck in the past.
I feel like I need some sort of ritual, a cleansing of some kind to acknowledge and finalize the transition. I made a number of aesthetic changes last year as I was grieving the loss of that piece of me, as if I could reconfigure my life by reconfiguring my hair. And while they felt right at the time they were really no more than a teenaged "You think you know me? You don't know me!" rebellion against where I was.
I sit on this beach next to a beautiful woman who both craves my company and genuinely likes me for who I am and that in itself is a transformation from where I was a year ago. In putting my focus on where I am and who I'm with right now, I'm living my new life fully present; no longer pining for what not only never could be, but with time and distance I can say never was in the way I believed it to be.
I step away from our colourful towels to go perch on some lava rocks against which waves are crashing lightly, to breathe the special air only moving water can create. I see a patch of sand that is being constantly refreshed by churning water and know how I can say a full goodbye. Grabbing a stick, I write our names in the sand, mine and the person I've been clinging to for far too long, and I join them with a heart for the love that once was. I smile with tears in my eyes and whisper goodbye as the waves wash over the letters, surging and then receding, leaving a clean slate and the opportunity to move forward and write a new chapter of my life.
