I can feel you.

Meegan is leaving for Maui tomorrow morning. I was supposed to go with her. We all were. Dan's got two jobs that need him badly right now, so I can't say that it's a bad thing that we're not going, just disappointing. We're postponing the trip till August or maybe even September for my birthday.

But the gray skies on this Monday morning are like hemlock in my orange juice. A "get-in-jail-free" card for the seasonal affectiveness disorder that I've been so valiantly fighting off thus far. Let's face it, summer in San Francisco is cold. Vacationers don't think, Oh, let's go to San Francisco and bask in the sunshine! I can work on my tan!  Living here is tough for me because I'm always in vacation mode. But I love the bay area, so for now, I'm stuck.

I've selfishly asked Meeg to constantly post, upload and text her vacation joy to me. Even if I'm not there, I can be there mentally and share a moment via electronics. Really, it doesn't take much for me to be there mentally. Does a child need prodding to be whisked away to Disneyland? 

Take the photo above, for instance. I can feel the heat on my naked shoulders, I can feel the grains of sand swirling between my toes with each lap of a dying wave, I can hear the breeze rustling in the palm leaves, and I can smell the coconut suntan lotion and the plumeria blossoms. 

More than anything else, I can feel my whole body exhale.

All the broken hearts, all the regrets, all the angry thoughts melt away like ice cubes left on the sand.  Without the extra weight, my body takes a minute to readjust to the lightness and replaces the missing unhealthy emotions with healthy joy. There is nowhere to go but up.

I reveled in those last paragraphs for a few minutes and felt free, happy and tanned. Then I came back to my present moment and realized that the house needs cleaning and rearranging. The sky is still gray and I have to work tomorrow. 

The challenge for me this week will be to keep the Aloha mentality somehow, and to not beg Dan to send me to Hawaii by myself.