Yes, I know–I sort of said I was going to quit, but sometimes, stuff keeps floating in my head and I can’t write until I get rid of it. It’s how the blog started, and, even if it’s only for myself, I suppose it’s okay if I continue on. My kids are older, and not everything is dire and whirlwind at a thousand miles an hour–most of my brain is occupied with writing or walking the dogs, so it’ll happen less often is all.
Anyway–the thing that has prompted me to log in to my own BRAND NEW website (yay!) and write a blog when I should be writing my newsletter has to do with what happened on vacation. It was a short vacation–Mate, me, three of the four kids and our “borrowed child” (our youngest is dating the borrowed child, but borrowed child needs a place to stay. Our solution? Bunk beds. Not. A. Word.) Anyway–we went to Monterey, played on the beach, went to the aquarium, ate a sourdough bowl at Fishhoppers and bought Turkish Delight instead of fudge. (The Turkish Delight is another story…)
This thing that’s weighing on my mind, though, happened at the beach. See–I love the beach, but as I get older, and heavier, and more arthritic, it’s become sort of a mixed bag for me. Walking in the sand when you’re fat is the worst. It’s just damned hard. But I did it! I walked down the hill, to the beach, got my toes wet, and walked back to a piece of driftwood and sat down. Yay me! The kids played, got wet, and wanted to get back in the car. After giving Youngest my sweatshirt, because they were wet and freezing, we sent them back and I started my slog back UP the hill unwitnessed by anybody but Mate.
I had an idea–the sand LOOKED firmer on one side, so I headed there, even though Mate said repeatedly it was a bad idea. But… but… I had an IDEA. And then I got there and the IDEA was CRAP and the sand was thicker and slushier, and I lifted my foot and the toe of my croc caught in the sand and I went floundering into the pile of slush and…
Oh. My. God. I couldn’t get up. I looked at Mate in horror. We both knew I couldn’t get up–not in this. And even if I DID get up–I still couldn’t walk in it.
I couldn’t meet my husband’s eyes. I was going to have to… I still can’t believe I…
I crawled. All the way up that fucking hill.
Not even on my hands and knees–that hurt my wrists. I crawled on my knuckles and my knees until the sand turned to gravel and there was a fence to take my weight on one side while Mate helped me up on the other.
He was there the whole time. “Keep going. It’s okay. You can rest. I’m not going anywhere. It’s fine.”
And I still can’t believe that. He stayed. He…through 34 years and my increasing crazy and my multiple neuroses and our children who have their own challenges and my batshit ADHD and the yarn thing and the dog thing and the fuck-me-how-many-cats thing and he …he’s not going anywhere. It’s fine.
He stayed.
I am not a romance heroine. I will never look like one. I will never act like one. But when I write a romance hero, one who is gruff and sometimes yells and sometimes makes bad decisions but whom we all love and root for, I know of what kind of hero I speak.
A hero who stays.
