My Heart's Home. Love at first sight.

I find myself longing for it. My mind always ends up there when it wanders. At night, when it's really windy, I close my eyes and imagine that the sound of the trees is the ebb and flow. I can almost smell the salty air, feel the brisk spray on my face. It captured me long ago and every time I've seen it since, the hold on my heart has grown stronger, tighter, faster. I am drawn by the beautiful balance of it's frightening power and reassuring peacefulness. The Ocean. The place I go to deep inside when everything else is to much to bear. Because there, I am small. There, my problems are but a grain of sand. Because there, I feel alive.

Let me introduce you to my heart's home. We met when I was 8 or 9 and it was love at first sight. My family traveled for twelve hours to reach the beach in South Carolina and the first thing I wanted to do was go swimming. I didn't care about seeing the house we were staying in, or greeting the rest of the family who were waiting for us, some of whom we hadn't seen for months. I was going to get in the ocean. Almost before we could get our bags out of the car I was in my swim suit, dragging my mom down the board walk to the beach. I remember it being overcast and not the warmest day for mid summer in the south. The beach was packed but I didn't care, all I knew was that I wanted in the water. What I didn't know was that it was high tide, and very windy. What I also didn't know was that high tide means huge waves. What I further didn't know was that a 9 year old is no match for a 4 foot breaker at high tide. Maybe you can tell where this is going but for those who may not be catching on I'll spell it out... I ate sand. Before I even felt the water hit my toes I was on my back spitting sandy, salty water and trying to figure out who hit me and which way was up. Now, you have to give me some credit here, I was a city kid from Ohio and this was my first time in the ocean. Aside from summers with my Aunt at the lake, the biggest wave I had ever seen was when my brother splashed in our blow up pool. My mom franticly hauled me out of the water and while she did inventory of my major body parts and wiped the sand from my rear, I was looking over her shoulder in childlike wonder. That big wave just came right up to me and knocked me over. I came all this way just to see the ocean and in return it pushed me on my backside. I was hurt, beyond the major bruise I was going to have, my 9 year old pride was deeply wounded. With my hand firmly in hers, it was my moms turn to haul me back up the beach, over the board walk and into the house. And that was how we first met.