Alright, it has been a consistent TWO weeks of negative temps and feet of snow, and I am officially sick of it.
Every year, around this time, I become tired of the snow and reminisce about summer and the beach. Specifically, the weeks I always spend in Ogunquit, Maine.
My grandparents started taking my dad and his three brothers to OGT when my dad was around 18. They were looking for a new vacation spot and stumbled on a tiny little tourist town in Maine, 30 minutes from the New Hampshire border. The closest chain grocery store is 25 minutes away, and the town thrives on summers.
I thrive in that town.
My year revolves around my trip to Maine. I spend January to July counting down the days until we take the 8-hour drive, and August to December looking at my Snapchat memories, wishing that week back.
Ogunquit is a one-road-in, one-road-out kind of place. Now that my cousins and I are older, we race through the obligatory dinner with our parents so we can prance around Ogunquit like we own it. We walk into the same mom-and-pop stores and eat the same ice cream from the same overpriced stand every night, but it never gets old.
The beach is ALWAYS packed, but the ocean is never above 65 degrees. Our toes go numb as we throw ourselves into the waves, then run back up to our parents, shivering. Lunch is always the same: a turkey sandwich on a roll, chips, and grapes. My siblings and I argue over the last yellow Gatorade because no one wants to drink the orange one.
My cousins and I take turns covering each other in sand to become mermaids, our parents lying in the beach chairs laughing at us because we’re acting the same as we did when we were five.
We’ve been staying at the same hotel for so long that the front desk lady knows our names. The people across the hall ask how my year at school was, because they were the same people across the hall from last year. Some things never change.
My week spent in Ogunquit is always the best week of the year.
Lately, though, it’s begun to feel different.
I’m getting older, so is my family. There are no more babies, no more strollers to lug around. Sand toys are replaced with tanning lotion; jelly shoes are now worn-in Birkenstocks.
The six months we spend waiting for our trip are also spent thinking if we can even go because of these newfound adult obligations. I dread the week being over before it even begins, because I know the next year won’t look the same.
Now, I just look to the future.
All nine cousins, with families of our own, at the same beach we’ve gone to since before we formed memories. Our parents, lying in the same beach chairs, laughing at their grandchildren doing the same things their children did 20 years before.
That brings me peace. This is what gets me through the dreary winters, and why I look forward to my week at the beach so much.
Only one-hundred-seventy-one more days! But who’s counting?