I spent Friday and Saturday near Port Jefferson, New York with my friends Jaime and Elizabeth and Jaime’s sweet friend Jill. It was amazing. I was having a sad end of my week, deep with stress and insecurity… I was trying to withdraw into myself, and absorb myself in work to keep from thinking about things I was fearing and past pains.

Sometimes fear and overthinking consume me. I take my gift of strong analytical skills and get caught up in possibilities… causing me to overanalyze situations at times. I sometimes work to create defenses. I become this crazy defensive warrior when i get scared, ready for my counterattack, ferociously charging with my large fiery spear–eyes closed and adrenaline pumping… and I don’t stop to listen, trust, or have faith.

Anyway, I’m thankful that my friends pulled me out of the funk I was in, convincing me to go to this amazing naturist beach at Smith Point when I was being a total drag and self-deprecating mess. They were wonderful, and the beach healed me so much… I realized I needed to go to somewhere clean, pure, bare, and quiet. I needed to be somewhere less superficial than the city to clear my head and see the world, and see myself… to hear my thoughts…

We laid out in the beautiful white sand, absorbing sun… We ran into the spray… I collected gorgeous shells and napped in the sun. We skinny dipped and celebrated the fact that we were more beautiful and more alive than any model on any magazine cover. We sang songs and talked about love and dreams.

Afterward, we went to a delicious mexican spot where we were serenaded by a mariachi band. As I was riding back on the train that night I just kept thinking about how much I loved my life, and forgot how beautiful it was sometimes due to noise within my head caused by stress and fear.

I like where and who i am right now… but I’ve got some ways to go before I am where I know I need to be. Right now I’m just clawing through the layers of scartissue to find me again… and I know I will, because the women in my family are soldiers… I just have to learn to believe that soldiers don’t always have to be armed and ready to fight. I have to believe that good things will happen to me. I have to learn to accept goodness without expecting the world to come crashing in on me… Its hard because i’ve seen so much darkness, but I know that the belief I have in the possibility of light has always kept me going… even when I wouldn’t acknowledge it… Because what is LIFE without this hope and longing for light…

I’m really glad I went to the beach…Friends can sometimes see you in away you have forgotten to see yourself for who you really are… and who you can and will be.