100 sunsets

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”

Maya Angelou

It’s almost 7pm, and I am lying down watching the ventilator spin, sometimes too fast, others slow. I am in a lethargic sleep, unable to move, wondering which should be my route tonight; should I walk through the main street or maybe walk around town and go to the plaza so the dogs don’t get too tired and I can avoid the people traffic. But then, I miss a sunset and that is something I cannot give up so effortlessly, after all, it has been many sunsets I have accumulated in my sunsets bill in a few months, and it is pleasant to sit in the sand, watch the people gathering at the beachfront, and the big dogs walking around. So, after a few minutes of deliberating I decide to hit the main street and go to the beach. It still sunny, a transparent sky and I pass by all sorts of people lingering: surfers, newly wed couples, girlfriends, kids trying to fish and of course the single and desolate. We all wait for the big sun to go down and melt with the blue waves in a marriage that last only seconds and we clapped as we have never seen the sky before like children gathered to see a wonder.

Walking on sand can be liberating, it tickles all those stiff points where your feet were hurting, too much stress, too much pain, too much weight, Women all around the world pay ridiculous amounts of money to feel that texture in a spa treatment, but if you are lucky, you find yourself at the beach where all these little crystals are free. Everyone and everything is free, your entrance ticket gives you unlimited access to the sand, sun, margaritas, sunbeds, waiters with the exotic accent, all the things you wouldn’t see at home. When I walk by, I often hear some tourist saying, “I could stay here forever”, “All I need is tequila and this paradise” and before I could relate. I used to say the same, what an irony now, being unable to enjoy it, or even grasp the taste of a good sip of wine or a good meal. How far I am from being that girl who used to be happy at the beach. I can barely drag myself out of bed to walk the beach for another sunset.

After so many years of traveling and drinking cheap Prossecco, I thought I had figured it all out and I was willing to live “a simple life”; the dream we envision when we are fed up with work, the lifestyle that will give us enough time to do everything that we couldn’t do earlier. Whereas life has always other plans and will take us to other roads.