But the number one thing I love about Summer is living at the beach.
I am one of the luckiest people on Earth, because I grew up ten minutes from the beach. And now I live three blocks away from the Ocean and my backyard is a lagoon.
I open my front door in the morning and smell the salty air, and I whisper a prayer of gratitude for this life of mine.
I have this theory that the closest thing to a real mermaid is a Jersey girl. (Or I guess a girl who grew up at any beach, but I grew up in Jersey, so that's what we're going with here.)
We've been swimming in the Ocean since before we could walk.
For us, the beach is not a vacation, it's our home. It's where we spent all of our days when we were kids and all of our nights as we got older. We catch jellyfish and build sand castles and bury our brothers, and try to dig to china.
At one point or another, we have all been almost killed in a rip current, heads scraping against the ocean floor, tumbling through the waves, not sure when we will ever get to breathe again. But that doesn't scare us away. We know the dangers and downsides, but we also know that there is this thing that happens in the ocean. There is this one moment, however fleeting, when you're standing in the ocean, and a wave comes, and you jump into it. And for one second, this tiny, rushing wave of a split second, when you are at the top of the wave, your hands in the air, a bubbly feeling in the pit of your stomach, where you are above the ocean. And just for that second, you are flying. The ocean is vast and unknown, but we keep returning to its open arms. It is our biggest threat and our oldest friend.
Whenever I leave New Jersey, the first thing I want to do when I come back is go to the beach. I don't feel like I'm truly home until I have greeted my old friend, the Atlantic, by dipping my toes in and watching the dolphins jump across the sunrise.
And even when it's not summer, the Ocean is my dearest confidant. When the Bennys return to New York until Memorial Day, and the grime on the boardwalk begins to harden and freeze, I head over the bridge in a hoodie and jeans, with my Wawa coffee in hand, and I work out my problems on the empty beach in the salty breeze. I love sitting on the beach in the cold, by myself. It's my favorite place to have a good cry, or a good think, or a good conversation with a friend.
There is salt water in my veins and sand in my soul. I am a mermaid who never grew a tail. And sometimes, the ocean is the only thing that makes sense to me.
