Beach

2010 was not a fabulous year for me.

It started out pretty okay, but then rapidly went downhill with DS losing it too often to count, DH losing his job, endless drama with my business, financially ending up in a huge whole, it was the one year anniversary of losing my Dad, and just a whole bunch of other yucky stuff happened. (Not the most mature expression, but hey, it works.) I won't say it was all miserable (because for a few months at the beginning it was kinda of alright) but it certainly won't go down in history as the best year that ever was. Seems like this is true for a number of friends as well - which leads me to believe that the planets were all off-kilter or some other such nonsense.

This year, though, this year is all about progress (as we've previously read.) And in the last couple of days, I've had two experiences which lead me to believe that progress needs to happen even more than I thought before. The first was a day spent in Mornington with my kids. The kids and I sat on the beach for the afternoon - and we were totally ill-prepared for that beach trip. Between us we only had 3 hats, a skerrick of sunscreen, only one towel, no clothes to change into, no food or drinks and no bathing suits either. As organised beach trips go it was a bit of a mess...but far and away one of the best beach days I've ever had. I sat there in my (entirely inappropriate for the beach) clothes, and saw my (entirely inappropriate for the beach) shoes fill with sand....and I loved every second of it. My kids were just ahead of me a ways, playing in the water (fully dressed. Nope, not kidding about that one). The sun was shining, the beach around me was full of happy holiday-makers, and just for those couple of glorious hours I had no worries, no stress, no guilt, and no...anything. I just lived entirely in that afternoon, hyper aware of how beautiful, fun, and immediately satisfying it all was. At one point I even folded my pants well above my knees and dove into the water to play with my three beautiful water babies. There was nothing to think about other than me, my kids, and that sunny, smiley summer day. The only real formed thought I had was, "THIS is why I need to succeed in 2011. So I can have more of these days of complete freedom." Freedom from the feelings, issues, emotions, and detritus of life which can sap away so much of our soul on a day-to-day basis. Just...free. I need to succeed so I can grant myself more days of freedom.

Tonight - NYE - some friends invited us down to the beach for a picnic of sorts. Literally the text said, "BYO fish and chips, blanket, drinks, word of the year, and whatever else you need to ring in 2011." How simple and yet how...ingenious. So me, my mom and kids (DH was working), and two other fabulous families went down to a local beach and just...lived for a while. This beach trip was (mostly) organised - there were enough hats, towels, food, blankets and so on for all of us (although yet again we forgot the bathers). I sat there in the dying sun, chatting to my friends, nibbling on yummy food, watching my kids get endless joy out of the water, the wet sand, the 'crunchy chips' (crunchy thanks to the sand coating them) and I just lived as fully as I could in those last hours of the year that was 2010. And again, I found myself thinking, "THIS is what life is meant to be about. THIS is why I need to succeed. I NEED this joy in my life, and moreover I WANT this joy and I even deserve this joy."

And so, while neither of these events were particularly earth shattering, both of them reminded me with startling clarity about WHY I'm doing what I'm doing, why 'progress' is the theme for 2011, and why now more than ever I need to learn to live my authentic life and carry on with my plans. Because chances are, tomorrow I'll forget the bathers yet again...but tomorrow I won't care, because I'll have learned to live with my occassionally forgetful nature, and probably even laugh at myself a little bit for it.

Bring on 2011.