It was a slightly over-cast day, but still warm. The kind of day where you think you don’t need sunscreen but then notice your shoulders are pink when you walk home. My hair was heavy with salt water. I sat on the beach with my boyfriend. I watched him watch the waves in front of us. He was pensive, looking towards the few surfers in the distance. We were on the trip of a lifetime, Costa Rica, celebrating our time together and my upcoming birthday. We’d spent the last 4 days exploring beaches and waterfalls. We walked through the rain forest listening to howler monkeys. We drank rich coffee in the mornings and extra salty margaritas throughout the afternoons. We sat in hammocks and took naps in the tropical sun. Now we were on a beach with soft sand and hermit crabs scurrying around us. I was about to turn 27 and I had never been happier. I was in love, I was traveling, life was good. In some ways, it was too good. I couldn’t have known that a few months later, we’d be breaking up. I’d be collecting clothes and phone chargers from his new apartment. I couldn’t have known, but in many ways I did.
Maybe an hour later, while he was in the water, I sat there with a book open, but I wasn’t reading any of the words in front of me. I was thinking about a conversation we’d had a few weeks earlier. I’d asked him if he’d want to live together. His lease on his apartment was almost up and he’d be looking for a new place anyway. Plus, I’d loved him so much. I thought that was the next step – that’s what you do when you love someone and want to be with them. He didn’t think we were ready. He wasn’t ready. I pushed him. We argued a bit. It wasn’t a fight, we never fought. But it was a difficult discussion and it hurt me to know that he didn’t feel exactly how I felt. I cried onto the pages of my book.
That day on the beach was 2 years ago, exactly. The rain falling from the damp pines outside my new England apartment sounds like the jungle if I imagine a bit harder. And when I sit on a beach towel, feel the sun kiss my cheek, I sometimes think of him handing me a perfect margarita and kissing my neck. I mostly remember that trip fondly and I align the pictures with happy song lyrics and “take me back” hashtags. The breakup was a year and a half ago, roughly. I’ve written about it extensively. I’ve filled entire journals with angry scribbles and words smeared with tears. I called my friends and complained how about how he didn’t fight hard enough for me. I avoided making pancakes on Sundays because it reminded me too much of our lazy weekends together. I cried. But I didn’t just cry. I also moved on. I moved on, in some ways, in most ways. I got my own apartment, found a new job, a lot has happened. But I still have moments of missing that trip, missing him. I still think of him when I take the first sip of a perfectly salted margarita. And on another trip, on another beach, I experienced déjà vu when the hermit crabs scurried exactly like the ones on that other beach.
I don’t often share the sad. In the two years since the breakup, I’ve told people we broke up and it was mutual. We still respect each other but we wanted different things. It’s true. Vague and monotonous, but true. If someone asks me why I moved to Maine, I tell them I had new opportunities. Also true, also vague. If people ask about that trip, I share the picture he took of me, smiling on the beach, searching for shells. I don’t tell people that I went on a walk to search for seashells so he wouldn’t see that I was crying.
I got through that sadness, I put on my sunglasses and smiled for the camera, just like I always do. And months later, when I kissed him for the last time then cried into his chest as he hugged me tight, I eventually let go, picked up that last box of stuff and moved on, because I had to. And now, years later, I’ve reclaimed what I’d lost while I was with him and I gained new hobbies, new habits that I’ve made entirely mine, not ours. I’ve gone on other trips, I’ve even sat on a different beach with another pensive, kind man. I’m in a different place now. A lot has happened, a lot has changed. I’m once again experiencing sadness. For different reasons, for a different kind of loss. But tears remind me of tears. And the words I’m writing now remind me of other words I had written, but never shared, like that overcast day on the beach.
I will keep sharing, I will keep crying when I feel like crying. I will keep writing when I am reminded of a happy memory or a sad one. I will still share the picture of the rain forest and the bright orange and pink sunsets. But I will also share the picture of me smiling as I collect shells, even if it reminds me of that particularly sad, over cast day. Because the memories will keep coming. Flashbacks don’t have an agenda, they come as they please. I’m sad now, but I will get through this too. It’s a different sadness, but tears will always be salty, I’ll always smile for the camera and find my way. And I will probably always think of him when I drink a margarita in the sun.
Erin A Clark 