No better place

She closed her eyes and let the warmth of the sun wash over her face, inhaled slowly through her nose and listened to the sound of waves crashing against the shore. This wasn't one of the meditation techniques her therapist had taught her that she tried so desperately to use in times of stress and anxiety and failed at constantly. No this was very real and today she was on a date of a different kind. Different location, different type of man and so far everything was going great. The weather was fantastic, the male company was the best she'd kept in months, she genuinely couldn't remember the last time she'd had such a good date and oh, such wonderful smells! How she loved a day out at the coast ever since she was knee high to a grasshopper. Was there anything better than the smell of fish and chips on a beautiful summer's day? Maybe, but right now there wasn't. 

“Polo mint dear?”

“Don't mind if I do thank you very much,” she replies and sticks her thumb nail under the top mint, forces it up from the packet and then pops it into her mouth and is instantly transported back to being ten years old again. She hooks her left arm under his right one and places her head on his shoulder as they're both sat on a bench looking out to sea. 

“Beautiful day for it,” he proclaims. 

“Isn't it just Grandpa, thank you for coming with me.” 

He pats her thigh twice with his hand and places it back on his own. 

Over the last few months she had ruminated on what love meant, on what she wanted from life, whether she actually needed someone in her life. Did she want children or was that something she's considered in the past because her parents so desperately want grandchildren and that's what society leads you to believe, that simply because you're a woman you'll grow up to one day become a mother.

Where would life have taken her and who would she have become if she hadn't constantly been told as a little girl that she'd grow up and get married and have children and instead been told there was a different path in life that she could follow. That her future happiness wasn't dependent on creating a family. Would it make a difference to her now and what she thought she should be doing with her life? Was this message too engrained in her now to be changed or at the very least ignored?

If you were to stop and think about every couple you know, how many do you think find themselves living in their happy place? Is having a partner, children, the house, the pets, two cars on tick, a big mortgage and two holidays abroad a year all it's made out to be? As role models for relationships go she considered herself to be one of the fortunate ones in that her parents had been married for the best part of 30 years, her grandparents on both sides for at least 50 years. Outwardly at least they all got along. Sure there was the odd bickering but that was just classified as sport. Certainly never anything that could drive a wedge into a relationship. Her friends' relationships weren't anywhere close to the same level. Maybe it's just a generational thing? We now live in a throw away society and a relationship or a marriage is no more important to try to fix than a broken toaster would be. We merely toss it aside in the trash and get a replacement one. Pretty soon you're ten years on and already onto your eighth toaster and yet both sets of grandparents had made theirs last half a century. 

"I spoke to your mother last week?"

"Oh, how was that for you? Should my ears have been burning?"

"Well, I would say tye word painful doesn't quite cover it."

Both of them share a laugh at the old mans joke. 

"She was moaning about you not giving them grandchildren again."

"I'm sorry Grandpa."

"Oh don't be sorry dear. Why on earth are you apologising to me?"

"Well I'm sure you've got better things to do with your time. I hope she didn't interrupt anything important like the Archers or the cricket."

This time he laughs alone clearly tickled that his Granddaughter knows him so well. 

"She said don't you want to be a great grandfather?"

"What did you say to that?"

"Well I told her the truth."

"Which is?"

"That you think I'm a great Grandpa already and that would do just fine for me."

"You're the beat Grandpa. Thank you. I bet she loved that."

"I think she mumbled something under her breath that I couldn't hear in my old age and I handed the phone over to your Nana and let her listen to it instead."

"She's like a broken record."

"Yep, she sure is. Doesn't get it from me mind."

"I try to tell her that to have a baby I need to find someone first."

"Oh that's good someone had the talk about the birds and the bees with you. I don't believe in God but I did pray and ask him to make sure you never asked me that question."

They both chuckled at the revelation together. A gull flying overhead clearly heard the joke too and joined in the laughter. 

"Grandpa I've tried dating but I seem to be a magnet for idiot's. Maybe I'm being too picky?"

"Is that a question or a statement?"

"Hmmmm. Not sure. Give me another Polo Mint and I'll think about it."

"How about I give you two and hope you forget what the question was?"

"Throw in an ice cream on the way back to the car and you've got yourself a deal."

"Sounds cheap at half the price. You've got yourself a deal young lady," he replies and fished the mints out of his pocket and hands them over. She takes two from the pack and pops them both in her mouth like a child afraid the adult will change their mind and ask for the other one back. Some habits die hard. 

"Do you want another one?"

He waves his flat hand from side to side and so she pops them back into his pocket and puts her head back on his shoulder and they fall back into silence. It takes her a couple of minutes for her to realise that he's fallen sound asleep next to her. She carefully detaches her arm from under his and stands up and walks over to the railings that separate them from the beach and the sea itself. She takes her phone out of her pocket and takes a quick snap of him asleep on the bench and then leaves him be. There's no where she'd rather be more in the world at that moment. Ducking under the railing she steps down onto the sand, takes her boots and socks off and sits down with her knees tucked up and starts to scoop a hole in which to bury her feet. 

Having maged to bury her feet she closes her eyes and replays memories of family trips to the same beach when she was young until some time later a familiar voice from behind her warned "Don't get eaten by the sharks!" 

Oh to be young and naive enough to believe in shark infested waters off the coast of England once more. 

How we got here;

https://foreverworkinprogress.blogspot.com/2024/10/an-existential-first-date.html

https://foreverworkinprogress.blogspot.com/2024/10/obviously-is-not-punctuation-mark.html

https://foreverworkinprogress.blogspot.com/2024/10/you-look-nice.html

https://foreverworkinprogress.blogspot.com/2025/07/the-hail-mary.html