I had my camera with me yet wanted to feel the Pacific Ocean and so I carefully walked in as the waves rushed through me with my hands above my head.
I had traveled (crawled?) that stretch of beach about forty years earlier. I remember feeling a connection to my early life and very disconnected from my marriage, although at the time I didn't really understand why.
When I worried I had tested his and his mom's patience long enough, I returned to where they sat and suggested we pack up and find lunch at one of the food vendors before heading back to the ship. I had Hawaiian Poke. They ate pizza. As I write this, I realize how the enthusiasm they expressed about the idea of travel conflicted so much with a lack of enjoyment of actually participating in the travel. The food was too foreign. The sun was too hot. The beach was too sandy. The sights couldn't capture their attention. I'm not sure I had ever thought about this. But back to me and this day....
Before taking a tender back to the ship, we walked through the park where the 150 year old huge banyan tree covered an entire city block. I weaved my way through its branches as I tried to capture an impression of it on video. I was enthralled by its size and root system.
Once back on the ship, I found myself at the sunset bar. I don't know why I didn't go back to the room with them. But I didn't. Instead I ordered a glass of white wine and in a way that for a change didn't feel lonely, I toasted Maui from the back of the ship.
That evening after dinner, I boarded a tender to go back to shore. I love seeing the ship from the water and never before had I had the opportunity to see the ship at night from the water. It was such a treat, one of my biggest highlights of the trip. I sat alone on the top level of the lifeboat for an incredible view as the ship got smaller and smaller.
I hadn't planned to spend any time on land (I was in it for the tender ride) but I found myself wandering one of the shops and buying a purse (which is funny to think about considering how rarely I use purses) before boarding another lifeboat to return to the ship.
This was three months before the fire that destroyed the town of Lahaina. This night has crossed my mind many times since the fire.
This is the trip where if I had been paying attention, I would have known my marriage was over. I know hindsight is 20/20. And I wasn't ready to believe it, even if I saw it. I really don't think I ever would have left him. I think my (misplaced) loyalty would have kept me in place.
Although, I do think that starting with this trip 3 years ago, I had slowly started to distance myself and set up more boundaries. I wasn't as quick to jump when he needed someone to listen to his endless complaining. I was learning to protect myself even if I wasn't willing to take the most important precaution and leave.
Maybe it was that slow progress of protecting myself that made him throw in the towel. If this was just a transactional relationship to him and my protections were getting in the way of the constant validation and admiration he expected, it actually makes sense that he would look for greener grass. He'll probably never learn that he has to water grass for it to stay green.
But back to this trip, one thing it taught me was how easily I can do it alone. There might have been a husband sharing a cabin with me but for all practical purposes, I usually found myself as a solo traveler on this trip and even the parts where I wasn't physically alone, all the responsibility fell to me.
You can't walk the same beach twice. The water is constantly moving. The sand gets pushed out to sea replaced with new sand, shells and rocks, eroded by the waves. Yet the connection I felt on that day with my 40 year earlier infant self reminds me of the longest relationship any of us has, the relationship with ourself. In the chaos as a third wheel on the dream vacation I planned, I found a little bit of my self on that Maui beach three years.
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