set it free

The other day, I was thinking about something that happened to me awhile back when I went to Rocky Point with the dogmom and supa to celebrate mother's day this past May. I don't remember that I blogged about the trip, but it was planned for the first weekend in May and due to circumstances, had to be postponed by one week. Unfortunately for my family, and after we'd already talked the supagirl into coming with us to Mexico to play, I realized that the trip would fall over mother's day weekend. As much as I hated to be gone, I also really needed the break and so after discussing it with Big J and the littles, I decided to still go. The three of us had a blast. Really. And it was something that I hadn't realized until we were there, that I needed so badly. The week following our trip was supposed to be my first BQ attempt at the Ogden Marathon, and as I look back, I know I was in a bit of a funk. The girls ran since I couldn't. We spent hours talking and solved every problem of the world, we ate, we sat on the beach, we laughed and cried and even tried to play a couple of rounds of bloody-mary scrabble (um, don't ask). I couldn't have asked for a better time or for better girlfriends to share it with. Each morning, we would carry our towels, our chairs and our beer down to the shoreline. We'd spend hours just talking, watching the waves and trying to rid ourselves of our master's (anne's house of pain) tan lines. Notice, in the photos, I am wearing a hat? Have you ever seen that hat before? Unless you've been to the beach with me, the answer is probably no. And as I am generally the one doing the picture taking when we're at the beach, well, no hat. So, the hat? Well, that's my beach hat and silly as it sounds, it means a lot to me. You see, a number of summers back, way before triathlon and IM and all the craziness you've become accustomed to me doing recently, my friend Kirst and I took surfing lessons through a company called Surf Diva in La Jolla. It was a tough time, personally and emotionally, for me. I was in a really dark place. So when she asked if I wanted to try surfing, I thought - what the heck, why not? What can I say about surfing? The truth? The truth is that it is, hands down, one of the hardest things I have ever tried to do. Once we got through practicing the basics like pop-ups and turtle rolls and how to recognize and get out of a riptide, our instructor took us out to water and we tried to make real in the ocean what she had tried to teach us on shore. And we tried it. And we tried it again. And again, and again and again. I don't remember if I got up that first day, but what I do remember is coming back to the beach and thinking - damn that has to be THE hardest thing I have ever done. I also remember suddenly coming to the realization that for that little bit of time I was on the water, all that other stuff, the noise, that had been in my head for so long, had gone. There was simply no time to think about anything at all while I was trying to get up on that board. The worry, the cares, the world - it all just seemed to melt away as the waves crashed over me and the board rocked underneath me and as I tried, eventually later that week, a few times successfully, to put one foot in front of the other, to stand and make my way toward shore. Later that day, at the tiny storefront of Surf Diva, I bought that hat. Subconsciously, I believe I wanted something that would help me to recall that feeling of total abandonment, freedom, that'd I'd felt out there on the water. Something to remind me to step out of myself now and again, something to remind me that there is always something more, something bigger than me and my problems. So, back to the beach, where there's me and my hat, supa and the dogmom, there are beach chairs, there is beer. And, as any beach goer knows, nature calls. As I headed into the water, a huge wave hit me and sent me completely under. It had been pretty windy for most of our time in Mexico, and the waves were fairly high - high enough to discourage us from trying to swim. Although, not that I needed much discouragement, you know how much I like swimming and all. As I surfaced, I realized immediately that my hat was gone. Completely and utterly gone. I looked around, hoping that it had been tossed to shore with the crashing water, but no. I scanned the water around me, and still, no hat. As I walked to shore, my feelings were jumbled. I was sad, and yet I berated myself for feeling sad about a dumb hat. I believe I may have even said to Krista, oh, well, it was just a hat. We sat there on the beach for awhile, alternating talking with quiet time, each of us in our own worlds now and then. Thirty minutes passed, an hour, perhaps two, when suddenly I look up just as one of the girls says - hey, isn't that your hat? And right there, right on the beach, washed to shore by the waves, was my hat. Returned to me by the powers that be. You know that saying that says if you love something, set it free, if it comes back it was meant to be? The funny thing about that saying is and yes I know it is about LOVE but bear with me here that, incredibly, the hat did come back. And yet... I had not set it free! I did not want to set it free! I wanted to hold onto that hat forever because with it, I could remember how I felt out there those days on the waves. It had been taken from me and I had simply resigned myself to the fact that it was gone and I was going to have to live without it. That, in and of itself I realize, is a big step for me. Slowly, I am learning on my own how to quiet the noise that rattles in my head. To shush the outside world and be present in the precious moments I find surrounding me each and every day. To believe, to trust, to be whole. To go forward, no matter what happens. TO LET GO. But the hat? Well, that hat is a reminder of that and so much more. It reminds me of where I have been and where I am going. It reminds me of the enormity of the world around me and the simplicity of choosing happiness over pain. It returns me to a point in time where I chose to be strong, to move forward, to forgive and be forgiven, to connect. And as much as I might believe that I have learned and changed since that day, perhaps its return to me is a gentle reminder that I'm not done growing just quite yet.