It's me. Hi.
We are right where we're supposed to be
I know, it's been a minute. My dad dying at the beginning of the year really threw me for a loop. Then work got crazy. And now I'm back working on my memoir but wanted to check in and say Hi! and tell you this story.
I caught up this week with an old friend who arrived during my job's "quiet hours" at lunchtime for a walk along the boardwalk and bite to eat. Despite the sun, the sharp wind reminded us that it wasn't quite summer here at the Jersey Shore, gusts blowing in our faces when we turned around to head back north toward lunch.
As we made our way along the old-timey-looking boardwalk of my adopted beach town, we heard a man’s voice coming from a truck pulled to the side of the road yelling, “Hey ladies!”
We looked at each other like, “Ew, why?” and then we heard him say, “There’s a whale out there!”
My tune quickly changed. “OMG thank you so much!” I yelled as we rushed to the metal railing and look out across the ocean toward the horizon.
The man’s SUV windows were wide open and he pointed just a little south for us to look for the whale. My girlfriend and I stood scanning the water and then I heard her say excitedly, “Oh, there he is!”
I am not the most observant person and terrible at finding people in crowds — it’s like my eyes start to spin in their sockets when I have to meet someone in a packed bar or theater lobby. I go into panic mode and have a type of detective performance anxiety that blurs my vision and renders me incapable of differentiating faces and other discernible features.
Standing at the railing I was sure that I would not be able to see something I’d been waiting to witness long before I moved five blocks from the beach last summer. For years, I've seen people post on Instagram that they saw whales just offshore while they ate Jersey Mike’s subs on their beach towels or took a walk, just minding their own business. I had even seen people report that a massive whale had flung itself out of the water before diving back into the dark waves.
But I just never seemed to be at the right place at the right time.
A few years ago for my birthday, the kids took me on a whale-watching cruise that shuttled us out past the tip of Sandy Hook toward Coney Island and the Rockaways at the edge of Brooklyn. It might seem like an unlikely place to look for marine wildlife other than on the side of a discarded tuna can but there has been an influx of whales — humpbacks in particular — chasing prey into NYC's warmer and cleaner water over the last decade.
Not that long into our voyage on that very hot and sunny day in August, the ferry pulled alongside an actual whale. We all rushed to the sides of the boat to watch the creature cycle through its routine of surfacing, then undulating head first back down into the water before waving its massive tail at us and slipping into the depths of the Hudson River. We stood on top of the deck under the hot afternoon sun and watched as the whale would slowly breach the surface and then sink out of view until the fan of its tail gave its salute before being swallowed by the water and then waited for it to do it again, amazed each time by the mere existence of this prehistoric looking thing.
The kids and I spent the entire two-hour tour on the ferry’s top deck where we endured conditions that fluctuated between feeling like we’d gotten stuck in a very hot wind tunnel and the plains of Africa when the boat slowed down. Not for the first time that day, I really regretted wearing a long and flouncy sun dress whose bottom just wanted to flip over the top of my head and show everyone my Costco granny panties as the ferry picked up speed.
After the tour, we headed to a nearby waterfront restaurant for an early dinner and when the hostess said she only had indoor seating available, we said, “That’s perfect,” and basked in the dark air-conditioned dining room sucking down glasses of ice water.
So when my friend yelped she saw the whale and began to point, I squinted into the distance and then saw a spray of water fly up into the air and something big and dark moving in the water. “I see it! I said, and we stood for a long time we stood and watched the ocean, waiting for the water to shoot up each time the animal surfaced.
Seeing that whale this week along the boardwalk that I have walked all winter with my dog, looking out at the waves and thinking about all the things — honestly, sometimes too many things — was a thrill. My girlfriend and I stood and watched for a while before heading to a restaurant that’s right on the boardwalk to grab some lunch while looking at the tall wrought iron lamps lining the boardwalk and the choppy ocean off in the distance.
I went home and spent the rest of the afternoon logged onto work where things have really slowed down since I got back from our annual conference in San Diego at the beginning of May. Nowadays, I am not frantically logging onto work at 5 a.m. to come up with something to add to the CEO’s keynote or working on some data report until 9:00 at night. That all sounds kind of terrible but honestly, it was really fun and satisfying. And after my dad dying this winter and churning up so many emotions and wounds from long ago that I didn’t realize were still so tender, the new role at work was a great distraction from myself and all the stories it seems I still cling to. Apparently, the process of letting go and moving on is still a WIP (as we say in Corporate America).
Personally, it was very fulfilling to be able to rise to a work challenge but it turns out, it was a professional win as well as it led to a nice promotion. On Thursday morning, I saw that my new title had been officially updated on the company’s org chart and I have a shiny new email signature. I’d been checking for these updates since I got the good news from my adorable manager a few weeks ago but really needed to see evidence that it had happened. I needed to see with my own eyes that what I had accomplished was not a fever dream but in fact, the continued weird reality of this new life of mine.
If you had told me two years ago that I would have found myself sliding into the position I now find myself in at my HR software company, I would have laughed in your face. There was no clear path between where I was and where I now find myself.
And my new salary is actually one that a person who didn’t need quarterly Botox injections, $250 jeans and pay half of someone’s college tuition might actually be able to survive on. Again, the path from writing $200 blog posts about sperm — and giving a third of it back in self-employed taxes — to the steady paycheck I receive today was nonexistent. That trajectory from Point A (sperm) to Point B (Corporate America) was never something that I could have seen. And yet. And yet.
So, here is what I have to say: Life is full of fucking surprises. But also, they don’t just breach the ocean of your life out of the blue. You need to just keep putting it out into the universe. I have learned that the shit that you really want doesn’t just get put into your sticky little hands. It comes when you least expect it after you have been doing the work for so long, you don’t even think about it anymore. After you log into Corporate America day after day and give it all you’ve got because failing is not an option. Because for one thing, you really need the money. But also, you want your company to have a kickass conference and maybe show yourself that you can do hard grown-up-lady-work things. It turns out, you just needed the chance to spread your wings.
Or it’s like speed walking up to the boardwalk all winter when the biting wind keeps even the most intrepid walkers away and you sit on a bench with your dog standing alongside you and look out at the dark, angry waves. Thin patches of snow cover the sand that the wind has blown into ripples that stretch before you like a long chain, linking the past with the future.
Every day you get to the end of your street and climb the wooden stairs to sit on a bench that’s been painted a cheery seaside blue and look at the morning light in the sky. You see the way it gets diffused behind the long strands of clouds, turning it all a soft lavender with layers of pink underneath and feel how the tightness in your chest starts to melt and soften like that sky. You notice how the sunlight eeks out from the sides of the clouds and spills across the water, lighting a path that seems to roll right up to the sand. As if you could carefully step out of the surf and make your way across the water toward the vast horizon to find maybe the future, or all the answers or perhaps just the peace of knowing that you are right where you are supposed to be.
You sit there on that bench scratching your dog’s head and wonder, not for the first time, where you’re going. And how you got there in the first place. You think, “I’m here. I’m here,” and look up just in time to see a spray of water burst into the air.
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SUNDAY SHARES: Read, watch, cook, buy
As you can imagine, I have read, watched and bought a lot of shit since we last communicated. Here are some of the highlights.
Of course, I am watching all the things that all of the other people are watching. The Succession. The Barry. But not The Ted Lasso because allegedly my 20yo son is going to watch that with me some day when he can fit me in. But I have also watched a bunch of random, lesser-known shows. Tiny Beautiful Things, based on Cheryl Strayed's gorgeous book, on HULU killed me. And Kathryn Hahn is a queen. Shrinking on Apple TV was delightful (boop!). Beef on Netflix was a wild ride that I finished on the flight home from San Diego and when I audibly gasped about something I had to apologize to the guy sitting next to me who then asked, "Did she just shoot him?" I looked over and asked if he'd already watched the show. "No, I've been watching your iPad." It's that good.
I've also read the requisite things. Demon Copperhead (excellent). Five Tuesdays in Winter (meh). I listened to the new Reese book club Romantic Comedy (loved) and decided to enter what I can only describe as the soft porn chapter of my audiobook life and randomly binged something called The Idea of You (spicy). I guess that's just where I am these days.
Here's an important question to all of you post-50, post-periods and post-estrogen parts of our lives (especially those of you afflicted with the cheap Irish skin): Are we still wearing shorts? This is a very serious question. I've avoided them over the last few years as the skin on my once-very-nice-legs has thinned to the point where the cellulite that used to be kind of hidden now creates craters along my thighs akin to the surface of the moon. I've taken to wearing shrouds but that got hot last summer so I bought a pair of long-ish jean shorts from Old Navy about 2 sizes larger than usual but TBD if I'm actually going to subject anyone to seeing me in them. Please, discuss.
I bought a bunch of things for the CA conference but here are the top 3 things I'd recommend: this Spanx jumpsuit (at one point I had about $1,000 worth of Spanx merchandise hanging in my bedroom to try on for the trip but this was the clear winner that could be dressed up or down) paired with a fitted blazer I had from H+M; I wore them with these super comfortable slingbacks (in stone) from Gentle Souls that my new 22yo work bestie told me she really liked; for sightseeing I bought these Mother jeans on super duper sale but sharing because with the annual Nordstrom sale coming up, you might be able to find a good deal (the whiskering doesn't look that intense in real life and they are weirdly comfy). A splurge but you know what? I am working hard for my money.
xoAmy
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