The Unknown Ancestor, part 2

After leaving Gurley, Alabama... it was time to go "Home"... there was a nagging feeling... that I just couldn't shake. I decided it was because of my dream of the Jetty's and that all would be fine after going there - breathing the salty sea air, feeling the sugar sand between my toes, hearing the gulls demand their fair share from the fishermen, and seeing the suns glint off the waves crashing on the rocks. But the universe wanted me to really want this, and she made sure it rained every blessed day I had available to go to the beach! When I finally said to hell with it and demanded to go to the beach... it was because I had realized that the last day I spent at this spot of the beach - it had been raining. walking down the boardwalk through the dunes and oats, flashes of memory from that last night spent there. Begging the ocean to heal my battered heart... and here I was again... begging the ocean to heal my battered heart. Maybe even rewind time just a little bit so I could go back to being a little girl running on the rocks while my dad laughed and encouraged me to slow down - knowing that I would NEVER SLOW DOWN. And that was it... I never slow down. I am always going at what seems to be mach speed. But the ocean, she is all about the slow down... the take it all in... the constant... she is always there - ready to welcome you home whenever you are ready, but also giving you the freedom to explore your world.

I immediately took my shoes and socks off the moment I saw the sand my toes scrunched and wiggled in the sand.

I could feel every tense muscle in my body start to relax. My shoulders lowered. My jaw unclenched. I took a deep breath in and released so much anxiety. I decided that I did not care that I had on pants... at a bare minimum my feet were going in that water...

As Jelly Bean learned to trust the water and venture further out into the waves, I took pictures of the rocks. Thinking the answer to the dream was somewhere there in those moments I was freezing. But it didn't come. As we headed back to the car, Jelly bean went to rinse the sand off his feet with his dad, I walked over to the inlet part of the jetty's and while staring out at the vastness of the ocean I burst into tears and said outlaid "I just miss you". I thought I was talking to my dad and Charly, turns out I was wrong about that too.

Weeks after coming home, the dream resurfaced... this time it completed. I turned fully, saw my dad laughing, fishing pole in hand. " Slow down AmberLee, I don't want you to fall". As I giggled I looked to the shore and playing in a tide pool with my sister as a baby was Charly smiling and laughing "Spunky, she is gonna be just fine!"

I realized in that moment... I was telling my inner child that I missed her. It was time for me to be more like my unknown ancestor... It was time to LIVE OUT LOUD again...