The Rest Stop

I was bored, hot, tired, and starving. My little sister was in even worse shape, and had decided to occupy her time by incessantly trying to touch my kidney with her elbow. My older sister was on my other side and reeked of an unnamed lotion her body seemed to depend on second only to oxygen. Whoever decided to shove the three children in the backseat of my mom’s black Ford Windstar for an eight hour car ride had made an extremely poor decision. We had been on the road since before the sun was up. Luckily for the other passengers, us kids didn’t even remember waking up  at the hotel and being placed in the van. Unfortunately, lunchtime was nearing and everyone’s patience was beginning to run thin. My mom had spent the last half hour feigning sleep in a attempt to try to keep us quiet, but our chanting and projectile pretzels had forced a flinch that gave her away. Grandpa and grandma had long since turned off their hearing aids and were having a wonderful time enjoying the coastline from their second row seats.

It had been a week since we started our journey through the Northwest United States. The previous day, we had met up with my grandparents in San Francisco and began a two day long drive up the coast of California. My dad soon understood that we could only be placated with a chance to stretch our legs and put something in our bellies. He pulled into the next rest stop and into an empty parking space. My mom had barely unlocked the van before an all-out battle royale had begun to see which sibling would be the first to jump into the ocean. I stiff armed my older sister as I flipped over the backseat and out of the trunk while my younger sister tried to scrambled past my grandparents.  We threw our shoes off in the general direction of our mother and sprinted off against a warm, salty breeze. I kicked up sand in every direction and began to pull away from my sisters as the clear winner. With each and every stride my anticipation ballooned until finally I dove headfirst into the glistening Pacific Ocean. For a second, everything was quiet. My eyes burned. The blue-green world surrounding me seemed undisturbed by my victory. Then a blinding light reappeared and my sisters’ laughter brought my world back into focus. We spent the next hour racing down the coastline, always trying to run faster than the incoming waves. By the time my parents had caught up to us with their leisurely stroll, we were soaked, exhausted, and incapable of removing the smiles cemented on our faces.

On our way back to the car, I slowed my pace and tried to absorb my surroundings. My childhood ignorance itched to run back to the van, but I was mesmerized by the pattern in which the light played off the waves. I wanted it. I wanted the warm sun, the incessant laughter, the refreshing water. I was too young to see how much these recollections and the ephemeral ocean breeze had in common. My family’s voices beckoned me back to earth. I took one last glance at a memory and shoved a huge handful of sand into my pocket. “Don’t leave me!”