This week, we celebrated my birthday (Shannon). These days, celebrations are every day – we are mindful of how fortunate we are that we have made it through loss, hurricanes, struggles, and eventually ended up in our dream situation- a tiny home on the coast. We did make a specific celebration night of getting pizza from our fave pizza spot that just re-opened, and we took Betty White for a walk on the beach. The beach here is wonderful out of season! 🙂 We also played tennis, though it is beside the spot where the town is taking all trash debris from the homes that were damaged, so the smell wasn’t all that inviting, but we push through!
With this week having been officially titled, “Hurricane Clean-up Week”, there wasn’t much time for our traditional dining out and drinks celebration: restaurants are barely open if at all, the water is deemed unsafe to swim in until the run-off from the storm is complete (yuck!), but we managed to get back to a sort of normalcy for us. We have received lots of emails and messages of people wanting an update of how we fared during the storm.
When we returned, we found that we had some roof leaks, one being into our bathroom, so we’re dealing with that. There were pieces of people’s houses in our yard, along with a ton of our shingles. The most surprising thing was that paintings and things on shelves and walls in our house were ajar- as if an earthquake had occurred. Really strange, yet a reminder of how thankful we were to have not stayed for Hurricane Florence’s arrival. Compared to most in our little coastal town though, we are lucky. There are many trees that have been ripped out of the ground, roofs punctured by falling trees and limbs, boats ran aground along the waterway, and many businesses along Front street were flooded so they are cleaning up to hopefully re-open.
I try to remain in-tune to each day, the blessings that come our way, especially on this birthday. I used to think that if birthdays didn’t come with flowers, a birthday cake, and dinner each night of the “birthday week” then it wasn’t a celebration. These days, Gerry and I just want a relaxed birthday, of course honoring the day, but remembering to be grateful for what we have been given in the past year. I think this year, it is just that…gratitude.
Like most things in life, I can usually find a Jimmy Buffett song that I can relate to:
“I’m just hangin’ on while this old world keeps spinning
And it’s good to know it’s out of my control
If there’s one thing that I’ve learned from all this livin’
Is that it wouldn’t change a thing if I let go”
I don’t think I could express it any better than that. For now, I will just be grateful to have had another trip around the sun.