On finding my obsession…

We’ve been in a funk. A FUNK people. The kind of funk that deserves all capital letters. About a week ago I decided  that I would surprise Nate after work with a beach picnic in Daytona. I packed pesto pasta and chilled white wine, crackers and an apple. I made sure the picnic blanket was in the car. When he got home I told him my plans and he seemed mildly excited. By the time we got on the road Nate was looking nervously towards the sun remarking that “we’re not going to make it to Daytona before the sun goes down.”

It started…

He went on to resign to the fact that he wouldn’t be able to take any photos with his new camera and maybe we should just pull over in Sanford and eat by the lake and I snapped back that the lake is not the beach and the beach is essential for a beach picnic and this was supposed to be a picnic at the beach because he LOVES the beach, not on the sidewalk and the sidewalk would ruin everything… (Yes, I am 100% that melodramatic on a daily basis.)

We drove on…

in silence, mind you… my oh so sweet, surprise date was plummeting quickly into a feud and I was wishing that I had just stayed locked in the office working instead of trying to do something romantic. Who was I kidding? We were in a funk and a simple beach picnic (beach, not sidewalk mind you) wasn’t going to solve anything. I had no idea what would solve it. A vacation? We won’t have a free day until December for that. A talk? Every time we talked, we argued. Quality time? I had tried, and I was failing.

We took the exit…

for Daytona and drove down the infamous highway by the racetrack as the sun dipped under the horizon. Nate sighed, no words were necessary for me to know that he was letting me know that his opportunity for picture taking was slipping away under the horizon as well. “Where should we go?” he finally asked. “Just down to A1A and then we’ll find a place to park.” We found a place by the pier. It was twilight when we sat down.

And windy…

I ate the pasta I had made. Nate didn’t want any wine or crackers… or apple. He ate chili from Wendy’s that he had picked up on the way. I felt like a dinner planning failure. I thought the pasta was good. I thought the wine would help ease our easily flaring tempers. All my tactics were falling to the ground like balloons with helium slowly escaping. I was out of ideas.

The food (and the light) was gone…

He was cold. I hadn’t thought to bring sweaters.  I was shivering but refused to admit out loud that I needed him for warmth. (Damn, I’m stubborn.) Small talk devolved into staring out towards the pier. Riders in ski lift chairs rode along the length of it, out into the crashing waves of the Atlantic draped in an eternity of blue. I realized I had been holding my breath and exhaled, moved an inch, (A mile?) then another. Then a big swooping sideways motion landed me practically in his lap. His arms were instantly around me. His face in the shallow arch of my shoulder. He inhaled. I exhaled.

I love you so much.

I turned around to face him. We sat wrapped up in each other, warming up both in temperature and in spirit. And we melted like butter into each other. My arms were wrapped around him in a big bear hug. Hours of planning, of trying, of scheming any possible way to fix us, all crumbled in the presence of vulnerability. And we talked about how much we loved each other. And we said how much we missed each other. How distracted we’ve both been. How impatient we’ve both been. And we joked. And we laughed. And we lived in that hug for a half an hour. And everything in the entire world was made right again.

And a song started playing in my head. Our first song…

A song that we had slow danced to, in my living room. Our first slow dance. A song he had sent to me as a love letter. A first of many love letters. A song we listened to on repeat for months. A song with lyrics that go like this…

“Everyone has their obsession. Consuming thoughts consuming time. They hold high their prized posessions, that define the meaning of their lives. You are mine. You are mine. You are mine, all mine. You are mine…”

photos we were able to snap on my iphone during the trip

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