10:08 p.m. - 2007-08-11
destination: bethany beach
I'm off to the beach to spend the week with my family. I went to this same beach twice as a young teenager (15 and 16 I think) with my friend and her family. When we were young, Jenny and I spent the 50 weeks of the year that we were not at one of the two beaches we vacationed at, dreaming of those places and feeling slightly bitter that we hadn't grown up there. So we moved to the beach the first chance we got.
Barely 18, I graduated high school and moved to Ocean City MD for the summer. I still cannot believe my parents let me do that and I tip my hat to their bravery and trust in us. We did all sorts of things you don't talk to your mother about and I'm sure she was very aware that we would be doing those things, but she let us go anyway, figuring we had to figure out life somehow. We made it out unscathed and with a lot of crazy, hilarious amazing adventures to recall. Surfing hours before a hurricane hit, meeting tons of people from Ireland who partied so hard they kept continually getting evicted from their apartments so we'd let them stay at our place - we would often wake up with a passed-out Irishman laying across the three of us (jenny and christa and i shared a tiny bedroom with two single beds that we pushed together and whoever got home the latest had to sleep in "the crack") week-long whirlwind romances and heartbreaks, sneaking into bars, the wonder of 80's night dance parties, stealing rolls of toilet paper from the restaurants we worked at because we just couldn't accept that toilet paper was something you had to purchase, 4am grilled cheese sandwiches at 24 hour diners...
Bethany Beach, where we are headed tomorrow, is a family-oriented beach about 15 miles from Ocean City. I imagine we'll head down there one evening. It will be pretty surreal to drive those streets, especially with my husband and 11 years of life under my belt.
Peace out.
