Anchors Aweigh

We spent the last week with family at our annual beach vacation, with a house of loud folks, from infants up to old people. When our children were young and behaving like so many dolphins, I spent our beach days in the water with them. As seasons waxed and waned, eventually there came that time when they married and began to have their own young ones. The labor of beach visits became tougher, hauling loads of equipment onto the sandy shore, just to make some semblance of comfort under the hot summer sun. I am eternally grateful for our annual trek -- it's one of the highlights of our year. We lay around, eat, nap, swim, enjoy grandchildren, and have evenings of hilarity after all the kids are in bed. We were missing one of our sons and his family this year, but still had ten of our twelve grandchildren along with their parents. It was loud, grungy, exhausting at times, but always blessed. One of the sweetest things is that now a lot of the grands are big enough to join me in the water; our boisterous flotilla was epic, running off timid folks around us I am sure. Papa was all the rage this year, with his dry, funny wit and physicality with them. He's not a water bug, but he's definitely a landshark. The grandkids think he's the bomb.com. He's a bit like Brutus, or maybe a bull in a china shop. I learned early on that it did no good to try to wrestle with him. You simply can't win. Instantaneous slam dunks are the order of the day; his thickly muscled arms and back are shored up with intense tenaciousness. Our four beautiful and handsome spawn have inherited these bulldog traits, thank God. Somebody's gotta help this next generation and I think they're it. 

As we arrived home, toasted brown and misty-eyed about having to leave the beach and our people, I noticed I was itching. Like, all over. I had felt icky for a couple of days but just figured I was getting tired from being in the water all day with rambunctious small people. Turns out that chicken pox stays with you all of your life, and I now have a bad case of shingles. While I'm here whining and whimpering, I've had time to observe and think about my dearest. Yes, he's a little (well, maybe more than that) OCD, bossy, opinionated and set in his ways. Think of the creature in Beauty & the Beast, with less hair. We're as opposite as two people can get (he is ISTJ and I'm ENFP, for those who follow that sort of thing), so there's always been plenty of conflict. With 41-plus years under our belts, I've had to grow some skin and he's had to shed some of his. But even with his bravado, there's a tender heart beating under all that muscle. The brawny bull snorts, paws the ground and then tenderly rubs ointment on my blisters, brings me food and drink, runs to Dunkin Donuts for my favorite coffee. He holds me in the night, when my emotions run over and I weep in pain. Irritatingly, he tells me what I should and shouldn't do, then we're off to the races again. 

The movies and the books say that love is violins and roses...if at first you don't find your soulmate, keep searching until you find him (or her) even if it means discarding the one who gets ugly, fat or disappointing in front of you. Truth is, life is never perfect - any time you get two warty humans together, you're eventually going to get disillusioned, tired or just bored. Love is a choice, where the ocean of it ebbs and flows. Storms, tsunamis and seaweed come alongside the gorgeous sunsets and beach-glass waters. Sometimes there are long seasons of difficulty interspersed with churned-up grit and slime, with the raft getting pulled into the maelstrom.

I don't believe there are any simple answers to this long game, except that in every high and stormy gale, my anchor holds within the veil. And it ain't me that's the anchor.