The ocean: AKA Life

Do you remember the first time you ever saw the ocean and realized how vast it is?  I don't.  Perhaps though Big L will.  She has been asking for a little over a year now to go to the ocean.  Her bio dad took his girlfriend, but not her, so I told her we would do our best to make it happen. 

It was different this time for me.  I remember when I was younger that I had no confidence in my appearance and I was always worried what people would think if I did...well, if I did ANYTHING.  So I just tried to sit around looking pretty and unimpressed, looking at everyone else, just SURE they were thinking about how ridiculous or unimpressive I was.  It only took 38 years for me to become happy with my body/appearance.  38 years of being self-conscious or disgusted, and ALWAYS critical.  Now I know that nobody cares what I do!

I acknowledge that my body is not perfect, but to be honest, I have never met anyone who has a "perfect" body.  I have however, met a lot of beautiful people.  Not beautiful in the way that the media would like us to view beauty.  Just beauty, to me all of my friends are beautiful, but most of us would not be models in magazines. 

I felt free, I had fun, built a sandcastle with the kids, got sand in all the wrong places, was peed on by little l.  It was a blast, and it was beautiful.  The ocean was amazing. 

I can only hope that my daughters will not have my hang ups as they age.  I am grateful that they are still young enough to not be too worried about how they look and what others think, but big L tends to be like me and it was fun to see her let go and have fun this vacation. 

After the beach we slowly made our way home, visiting family as we went. 

It was a great vacation, followed by last week, when I just wanted to sleep and rest!