“They paved paradise – put up a parking lot” so the song goes.
And then one day you realize that “paradise” is just in your head. It’s the story you’ve told yourself of how you think things are. And you’re left standing in a parking lot, your rose colored glasses showing you what you thought was paradise is just concrete & tar.
10 years later, bumps & bruises throughout as I try to fit a square peg into a round hole; trying to convince myself that this parking lot is my paradise. Until one day my rose colored glasses slip off as a series of texts with a “friend from work” is revealed. A pretty, white-toothed, dimpled, toned woman of the same age is the concrete & tar that reveal the actual lack of paradise in my life.
I’ve read this story before & I didn’t like the ending. The “friend from work” became a wife in the prequel. I don’t see why this version of the story should end differently.
Funny thing is, I woke up with a scraped elbow & knee. Like the universe was literally dragging me through the pavement of that parking lot, waking me up.
Eyes wide open, I head to an inn on the coast of Maine. I let the sand & sea permeate me until they become my paradise. Ironic that I have to cross through a parking lot to get to the beach. But my room overlooks the harbor & the smell of sea air revives me for a day. My dad sends a bottle of Prosecco to salve my wounds & I talk to my sister for 2 hours & both of those things act as a jackhammer to grind up that concrete & tar into something soft & soothing like a beach.
Drifting to sleep on a beach towel, I awake when the tide comes in & flicks at my feet. Here is paradise. Here is peace. I had to walk through the parking lot to get here. But I’m here. And I’m finding paradise on my own.
Crud My Kids Say 