It’s a cloudy morning on the beach.
There aren’t many people around so it’s super peaceful as I walk along the water’s edge, head down, picking up bits of weathered glass.
When I round the breakwater though, things sound rowdier. I look up to see three tweens horsing around in the water with their dad.
The mom is standing on the beach, arms crossed, laughing.
Our eyes meet and we exchange smiles.
I want to ask her why she’s watching – why she’s not in there too.
But I know the answer.
I walk past them and think of the countless occasions I stood and watched, arms crossed, while my friends
or boyfriend
or husband
or kids played in the waves.
As a child, you couldn’t tear me away – no water was too cold or too rough, no bottom too rocky.
It’s that way for me again, now that I know better, but there were decades in the middle when I couldn’t, or wouldn’t join in.
Starting at about 14, I came to believe there were two kind of girls, those that look great right out of the shower, and those that don’t look so good wet.
I told myself that I was the latter, so I stayed dry and pretended to have fun.
As I got older, the lists in my head made it worse. In addition to believing that getting wet was taboo for girls like me, there were too many things to figure out, to prepare for, or to fix.
I had lost my bandwidth for fun.
This is what I was thinking about on my return walk when I noticed that the sound of splashing had grown.
Maybe I was wrong about the woman I had passed?
I looked up to see eight bodies, rather than four, bouncing in the waves – two moms now standing on the beach, watching.
Regret is a useless thing to hold onto, but its appearance is a message from your soul.
When mine came, I regretted every instance where I gave up the chance to play with the people I love.
I haven’t missed one since.
What story do you tell yourself that stops you from joining in?
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