Escape.

Yesterday by dinner time I felt like I was going to lose my mind.

In my mind, I was saying words I would have prayed the Sinner's Prayer 

over twenty (even ten) years ago. 

Five smallish children were requesting, demanding, tugging, fighting, pulling, making trouble, making messes and all I wanted to do was RUN AWAY (but I still had to make dinner).

What kept me from locking myself in the powder room until my husband came home (besides the grace of God), was the knowledge that my DAY AT THE BEACH was nigh.

As in "next day" kind of "nigh"!!!

I was up at the first hint of light, slipped into the minivan I swore I would never drive, but have since succumbed (I, did, however, remove all baby wipes and scattered McDonald's crap Happy Meal toys. I vacuumed up crumbled goldfish crumbs and sprayed lavender scent to recast the interior into a more soothing, civilized and adult-like atmosphere) and drove off towards the rising sun to pick up a friend that I've had the privilege of having for as long as I can remember.

My friend is Jennifer. She is one of those who knows me better than most (and still loves me!) and she one of those types of friends with whom you can be laughing hysterically with one second and completely quiet with the next...and it is all completely comfortable.  No need to entertain! Finish a sentence! Complete a thought! Be appropriate! (you get my gist). Having just had her second baby girl just mere months ago, she telephoned me expressing desire to make an escape, and I could not have been more tickled with the idea.

We chatted our way to the shore and made it there in what seemed like mere minutes. We won't mention she got carsick and could not eat the homemade honey donut we had both been fantasizing over for nearly three weeks. I felt so bad for her that I ate not only my donut, but also scarfed down hers so she wouldn't have to stare at it. It's just the kind of friend I am.

Even if we had turned around right then and left to head back home, it would have been enough. Breakfast out is my absolute favorite. Breakfast out at a classic beach-side restaurant...just about heavenly!

Speaking of heavenly...

I do hesitate sharing these pictures on my blog, 'cause I just KNOW there will be some weary woman -as I usually am- who somehow finds herself on this blog and was minutes away from banging her head into the wall at various points today and the last thing she wants to read about is some woman's "glorious day at the beach", yada, yada, yada...but PLEASE! I implore you! That is almost ALWAYS me!!! And this was JUST a day! Seriously! This just does not happen very often AT. ALL. It's so rare, I had to blog about it just so I don't forget next week (or tomorrow) that I actually WAS able to escape. Please forgive me if these pictures bring you to tears of pity for yourself. I feel your pain. I've cried your tears.

 I digress.

Now, I am going to say this, but don't get defensive if you suppose yourself older than I. It is true, at nearly 34 I am not old. But today, I felt old. You see, at this particular beach is were I grew up. I used to come here summer after summer, carefully planning my wardrobe for those nights out on the boardwalk where many a smooth, tone and tanned skinned boy walked the boards, scoping for big-haired girls with white cotton culottes (or so I told myself). I would lay out for hours under the hot sun in nothing but a full-coverage swimsuit and SPF 4 Hawaiian Tropic OIL. At days end, I would oh so gleefully pull back my swimsuit straps to reveal just how much I had damaged my epidermis with those UV rays (although I didn't necessarily see it quite that way). It was why I was there. Relaxing was not my priority. I was there first and foremost to show the world how tan and tall and lovely an adolescent gal I was. (It might surprise you that I did NOT meet my husband at the beach).

Today I saw girls like the one I was years ago (but with far less of their bodies covered than mine was at the time). Actually, I could smell them before seeing them, as their Bath and Body Works lotion cast a broad circumference of brown sugar and vanilla wafting in with the salty air. There taut skin was oiled up, their sun kissed hair was blowing in the breeze and you could most definitely sense they were not there to admire the crashing surf (unless, of course, there was a surfER on it).

As for me and Jen, we both felt like we were matronly thirty-something types (probably because we are!) in our Lands-End style suits and the 50 SPF sun lotion sitting atop piles of Food Network and Country Living magazines strewn next  to our striped beach chairs. 

But guess what? 

Not only were we content with where we are at, but we wouldn't trade it for a million years -or the perkiness of the countless young bazooka's that paraded past us. 

Ok. 

maybe for one day we might trade, 

but not a minute longer than that!!).

I thank God for giving me time and space to escape to His sea.

It has always been one of my most favorite places to be restored and refreshed.

I truly pray if you are in need of some type of retreat, that somehow, some way, you will be given just what you need! It does a heart/soul/body/mind GREAT GOOD!

***

{I am so, so grateful to my mom and our dear, sweet Lydia who watched various members of our little tribe in my absence.Thank you!!!!)