My slice of paradise
I haven’t been feeling well for about two weeks now. I’ve been feeling unusually exhausted like I can’t get out of bed in the morning. I think I reached my breaking point on Wednesday last week and I was booked off work for Thursday and Friday. I wasn’t sure that time off work was what I needed. At that point it felt like I needed to be in an induced coma or something.
My therapist was the one to pull the plug and force me to take time off work. I wasn’t convinced that time off work would work cos after the weekend I’d still need to go back to the very same job I was convinced was trying to kill me. Anyway, I took the time off. On Thursday I still wasn’t feeling okay but then I saw a pic of the ocean a friend had posted and wondered if THAT was what I needed. To see the ocean. I was too scared to ask my friend if I could visit her for the weekend at such short notice so I thought of plan B.
My plan B was to go to Durban for the weekend. I never do Friday-Sunday trips as they feel too short for me. I prefer Thursday-Sunday. But I didn’t have that option as I had a therapy session on Friday morning so I could only leave after that. So I went on google, checked out flights and accommodation and when I saw I could afford it I booked flights to and from Durban then found accommodation that was right by the beach. My mission was clear. I needed to go do my favorite thing in all the world- sit and write by the beach.
I landed in Durban at 8pm and only got to my hotel after 9pm. I wasn’t sure if it was safe for me to go to the beach alone at night so I just marveled at it through the window. I slept with my window open that night so I could hear the waves all night. I only managed 5hrs of sleep that night. I just couldn’t wait for morning to come so I could go to the beach. The next morning straight after breakfast I took my beach bag and went to get my slice of paradise.
My slice of paradise is reading and writing by the beach. I went to dip my feet in the water. It was too cold for me. So I spread out my beach towel and journaled a bit then read the book in the pic above. THAT to me is paradise. It does not get better than that!! Or maybe it could? I don’t know but for now THAT is my paradiso.
Probably due to the book I was reading I started contemplating the magnitude of my grief. I’m sometimes too scared to feel my grief in its entirety but that moment felt safe enough for me to feel it all. So I felt it. I like to process my deepest pain by the beach cos looking at the ocean I always have this thought that there is NO WAY my pain is as big as the ocean. If it’s smaller than the ocean I can handle it. That perspective makes it feel manageable to me and it always works.
I flew back home the next day and I can still feel the shift that trip did for me. I made peace with what I needed to make peace with. I don’t know what it is about the ocean that’s SO therapeutic for me. Amongst the things I needed to make peace with was that my heart will ALWAYS be in pain. For as long as the love of my life remains dead my heart will be in pain. All I can ask for right now are joys that are much louder than the pain. And I pray sincerely for joys that are much louder than my pain.
Ah. What a healing trip that was. I NEEDED to get away. I needed to spend the whole day reading a book by the beach. I needed to remember that my life is bigger than what I was battling with. I needed to remember that I always find clarity when I do things that nurture my soul. I needed to sit and confront my pain while facing something infinitely bigger than it. I needed to remember that I’m still a small piece of a much bigger puzzle. I needed to remember that my natural state is wholeness and that is what I should strive to return to not perfection.
OMG, I could go on forever. I am so grateful that I was able to do that for myself. I’m still reading that book and if you’ve ever struggled with any kind of pain that you need help reframing in your mind, I CANNOT recommend that book enough.
