A feeling to return to

We bought this recently as it reminded us if this moment

We go on holiday to the same place every year, which is something I said I wouldn’t want to do when I grew up, because for as long as I can remember my childhood holidays were at the same place, in the same accommodation every year and I didn’twant to repeat that.

But here we were, nine or so years later. I had fallen in love with this beautiful Cornish seaside bay. With its stunning surf, hypnotic sunsets, rock pools and its river, which wound its way into the sea, changing its pace and course with the ebb and flow of the tide. I could sit for hours watching the swallows dance above it.

I vividly remember the first time we drove the camper van around the hairpin bend and when the bay slowly came into view, I had never seen anything like it before and each year when we roll down and around that bend, I feel full of joy and a sense of home. I would always sit upright and forward in my seat, craning my neck in anticipation of my first glimpse. I have never tired of that initial blaze of unique, glorious beauty.

It’s also a special place because I caught my first wave on a bodyboard there at around the age of fifty.

I’d never been on a board before, so I stood in the sea watching the others get on their board at the right time so I could work out what to do. I had a fair few dunking’s before I caught a wave, but when I did it was breath taking (literally), I had never felt anything like it before and probably never will again.

That one moment in time captured in my mind and body, it was spectacular! I can still feel the water splashing up and in my face and remember the taste the saltwater as it rushed over my head. There I was, being propelled on a crashing wave.

A moment of unique synchronicity. That one wave in that split second. It is impossible to recreate and impossible to forget. There’s a bodily imprint of the sheer joy and exhilaration i felt, which I can still feel when I think about that moment now.

We try and return to this feeling in therapy as an anchor of sorts if things get difficult. We loved that feeling. A moment in time.

We feel fortunate to have experienced our wave of joy. We know now, looking back that it was a younger part of us shrieking her head off with sheer happiness who was right on top of that wave. We recognise her now and the familiarity of the fun and laughter she represents.

And perhaps that’s why we keep returning. Not just to the place, but to the feeling it gave us, a reminder, held somewhere in our body, that joy like that is still possible and that it belongs to me.

We bought this recently as it reminded us of this memory.

🐧