Endings

Everything feels so sad on the last night of vacation, even if I am generally ready to be at home (and be around respectable members of my age group). The house, even though all the lights are on, doesn't feel sweet or beachy or ambient, but empty or emptying, paper towel rolls and plastic bags of leftover food left on the countertop by Grandma as she packs scrupulously. The family is scattered and separated in their individual rooms, throwing sweaty clothes unfolded from drawers into suitcases, not drunkenly yelling its way through board games. On the last night, the beach is misty and smells fishy, and I see a cockroach scuttling outside the door.

I'm so bad at endings all around. On the last night of college, I laid next to a friend in an emptied room on bare cots, looking incredulously around at the blank space of the walls where signs of life had been. On the last day of summer before I left for college, I threw a party that was supposed to be a happy, good luck, going away party for everyone, and ended up sobbing through the whole thing. I wish things were cut off mid-way, unexpectedly, so that they end on top, like Friends did, and not winding down to a pitiful, conclusive ending.

Highlight of this trip: I saw this, massive sand dunes at Jockey's Ridge State Park.

They killed your legs to walk up, and you had to hunker down and stare at the ground to get to the top, but when you did, you look one direction and see the ocean, and the other and see the massive, calm sound. Its remarkable - the kind of phenomenon that makes you stop all of the sudden and think about how remarkable the earth is.