You live less than a half an hour from the ocean. Your summers are filled with days of bumming around on the beach. This is one of those days.
Let’s be honest, you always seem to get a later start to your day than you had originally planned. But you justify your early afternoon arrival because now you will be missing the morning rush of beach-goers. Which leaves more space on the beach for you and your crew. Score! You leave the house armed with towels, beach chairs, sunscreen, magazines, footballs, Frisbees, books, snacks, and the ever important water bottles. All of the essentials. You and your girls swing by the deli first, because a Long Island beach day could not start any other way. The drive to the beach consists of putting the windows down, hands riding the wind like waves, while you listen to upbeat country music. The anticipation of a fun-filled and relaxing day puts your mind at ease and a big smile on your face.
You first and foremost focus on finding that perfect spot on the beach. It being a beautiful day in the middle of the summer, the beach seems to be almost filled to capacity. You hunt for a spot near quiet looking groups of tanners or old couples buried in their books. You know to avoid anyone with loud music playing, kids that have made a game out of throwing sand at one another, creepy guys with wandering eyes, and a Frisbee game with unskilled players. Since this is not your first time at the rodeo, you manage to find the perfect spot. Down go the beach chairs, out comes the blanket and towels, and in go your headphones.
For a brief moment you become self-conscious about your beach bod and are hesitant about taking off that tank-top. But luckily that moment quickly passes as you realize that your friends could care less about your appearance and there is no one around that you feel like impressing anyway. You are comforted by the amount of farmer’s tans and ridiculous tattoos that you are surrounded by; which you immediately feel guilty about thinking. But still. You know that in order to have a “beach body”, you simply need to 1- have a body and 2- be standing on a beach. Oh look, there you go! So after a quick pep talk to yourself, you are working that beach like it is your own personal cat-walk. Plus you remember how “supportive” that new Victoria’s Secret bathing suit is. Boom!
A day at the beach also means that you get to indulge in one of your favorite activities- people watching (well yes, and sleeping). You start to both envy and pity the mothers chasing their little ones around the beach. You envy the children because of their care-free attitudes and how much pure joy they seem to exude. And then all of a sudden, you become incredibly nostalgic about your childhood. Your mind races back to the days you spent on this same beach, with these same sisters and friends. You too used to attempt to create the tallest sandcastle possible and let a ridiculous amount of sand into your bathing suit while sitting where the waves crash. With ice cream dripping down your chin and sunscreen stinging your eyes, you would wait in the water for that perfect wave. Body-surfing was somewhat of an Olympic sport to you and you were going for the gold medal… Wait, where was I? Or right. You also pity the mothers. Because as great as all of those memories are, someone had to clean up that dirty face and wipe the sunscreen out of your eyes for you. Thanks mom (and dad)!
And somehow the hours seem to pass by with great speed and ease. The time spent knocking chapters off the latest Nicholas Sparks novel, throwing a football around when you feel sporty, working on your tan, diving into the salt water to escape the sun, and passing around cold watermelon to unwind. You bounce around from the water, to your chair, to your towel, and back again. You change locations after being thrown over by a massive wave, once your feet have successfully played with all of the sand around your chair, and when the sweat dripping down your back creates a gross puddle on your tanning spot. Hey, no one ever said that the beach was the most glamorous of locations. As a side note, you feel somewhat like a cooking chicken as you rotate your body to even out your tan. You also occasionally doze off while you were attempting to give your back some more color from that blazing sun. As you sheepishly come back to life, you see that the sun has somehow made its way from one end of the sky to the other. If you are an experienced beach goer, you remember to throw a light hoodie or long sleeved cover-up into your beach bag. You know that once the sun makes its descent from the sky, that breeze you were praising earlier has become a goose-bump inducing wind.
It soon becomes a silent battle trying to outlast your neighboring beach-goers. You consider those who leave the beach first to be failures of some sort. And you, my friend, are no failure. Because, let’s be honest, being the last group on the beach is a strangely awesome feeling. The winners will be those who have brought the most snacks, can last without a bathroom (or just settle on going in the ocean), and can brave the sun the longest. But ultimately you decide to call it quits when everyone’s minds start to focus on what to have for dinner and what ice cream place to stop at for dessert. You attribute this to the fact that you had just reached the bottom of your box of Cheez-its and you can hear everyone’s stomachs growling. Because you are some of the only remaining beach-goers, you consider yourselves victors of the sand and start to pack it up.
You leave the beach feeling satisfied. A mixture of total relaxation from the naps and exhaustion from the sun. With salt kissed lips and noses covered with temporary freckles. Your hair is up in a tangled messy bun and your toes are covered in stubborn bits of sand. Your skin feels both dirty and clean at the same time. The skin’s confusion most likely coming from the combination of the stickiness from the salt water, mixed with the warm breeze feeling. You leave hopeful that you will emerge as a sun-kissed, tan goddess. But if we are being honest, you will probably end up having a mix of unfortunate sunburn and that pesky pastiness that refuses to go away. Whatever sort of strappy bathing suit you had been sporting will soon become a temporary tattoo of sorts. You feel that both this unfortunate pattern and any form of pastiness are simply unacceptable for this time of the summer. Therefore, you will most likely lay out by your pool the next day to even out that burn. This is not the best of ideas, but there is just something about roasting like a chicken that makes it a classic summer activity.
Beach days are one of your favorite parts of summer and you do not know what you would do without them. Until next time.