Car Rides and High Tides

Isn't it strange how your "happy place" changes? I'm typing this from what I would have called my favorite place on earth for most of my life. The sun's streaming in through the floor to ceiling windows and I'm watching my grandmother sip her coffee out on the deck like she's done every beach week since before I can remember. My grandfather's cooking up bacon and my sweet aunt is already hard at work cleaning up after everyone. So much hasn't changed. This island feels like it's been the same for nearly 20 years.

And yet, I'm the one who feels different. I spent so long wishing and hoping that nothing would ever change about this place and these people and here I go, messing everything up. I find myself missing my pets and my husband and missing the satisfaction of checking things off my to-do list. Who would have ever thought that I'd be wishing I was hard at work rather than on vacation??

But it's times like these where I feel grateful. Grateful for the hustle and bustle, grateful for family, both here and away, and also grateful for time to take afternoon naps or ride a bike around the seaside neighborhoods or catch up on some Netflix guilty pleasures.

I'm grateful for job offers in Maine that will allow me to be surrounded by books all day.

I'm grateful for French toast bagels.

I'm grateful for late nights laughing about three ducks in a trenchcoat.

I'm grateful for Mr. Bean.

I'm grateful for audiobooks, bikes, and FaceTime.

This may not be my "happy place" like it was in my teenage years, but it's still a place where I am happy.