I can’t wait for summer…I can’t wait for summer…that’s because I just bought a summer home…yep…I did it…I signed on the dotted line…I took the big step…I fell in love…in love with the beautiful beach house at the Jersey shore…I fell in love with the glistening sand when my foot touched the softness…I fell in love with the big waves when I heard them crashing…I fell in love with the seagulls and the sandpipers…and I fell in love with the little condo on the corner…on the corner of a beach block…with a bicycle path that leads to town…a little town…with a sandwich shop…and a bagel shop…and a sundries shop…I fell in love with it all.

I asked my mom to send along some of my baby pictures for a project I am working on…funny that all the pictures she sent were from my early years at the beach where we used to spend our summers when I was a kid…there are pictures of me building sandcastles…there is one picture where I must be about 4 years old and I am wading in the water and running from the waves…there is another picture of me in my white hoodie sweatshirt sitting cross-legged on the beach…must have been a cold day…but I was at the beach…each picture is different…yet…they all have one thing in common…it is my smile…my smile on my face…complete with two dimples…one in each cheek.

I think the beach has a way of making me smile…that’s why I barely hesitated when I left the Jersey shore two weeks ago…”Life is short,” I thought to myself…”Life is fleeting,” I said…”I’m 50, if not now…then when?”…”You can do this…you are ready,” I said encouragingly (and with a little coaxing)…as the Nike ad says, “Just Do It”…so I did…I took the plunge…all by myself…and I bought the little condo on the corner…I signed on the dotted line…only one line this time…my husband wasn’t there to sign on the other one…no…I was sad that his signature would no longer be next to mine…but I built up my courage…and I signed it on my own.

And as I thought about my little condo on the corner…I especially thought about the table in the kitchen…that’s because it is a round table…not like the rectangular table in my kitchen at home…not like the rectangular table that forever has an empty seat where my husband used to sit. At my little condo on the corner…my beach house…the table will always be full..full of hope for the future for me and my children…with new memories to create for us all.

Yes…there are a lot more smiles for me in my fifty-something years…and if anyone asks about my wrinkles…I’ll just tell them they are dimples from all my smiling.

Judi

Note to all my readers…you can now also find me blogging on the 50-Something Moms Blog – A Flash of MidLife Madness..