What I haven't done

Lost diary archive (Jersey Shore edition)

Yesterday: Arguments. Yesterday: the reality that my parents are quickly aging. Yesterday: all that I don't want to know.

Today: Better. Today: 8a walk and jog on the beach. Today: 5 p.m. swim in THE Atlantic Ocean. Today my essay on not writing about Daddy’s illness went live on Brevity’s NonfictionBlog.

Layers of thought, layers of meaning. Mommy and Daddy pass into and out of different moods, different eras. Daddy wanted fried flounder tonight for dinner. He’d unwittingly tuned into my nostalgia channel.

But so much to face, so much I am not facing. When Mommy talks about wanting to go to an assisted living center, after the first few minutes of grappling with that idea, I realize once they leave this house, this house leaves me. Right now, times are tough, the visits full of chores and difficulty, but I’ve loved coming here. Loved the way it instantly became my second home -- owing to all of the summers spent on the Jersey Shore -- even though it’s not my childhood home. It’s the childhood home I probably would have preferred.

I've loved the way the beach is a short walk away … so short you can pop down to the shoreline for 30 minutes in the afternoon, or you can go down quick before breakfast. Tonight, since Leo and Mike are not with me, I went before dinner, when the 5 p.m. surf is delicious. 

Loved the way the blocks tell stories, the lanes behind the houses provide a new venue, loved the way everyone bikes, loved the way the train horn is even louder than the one I heard from my bedroom in Hicksville, growing up. Loved the fog horn emerging from the darkness. Loved the way I almost always sleep well here. 

I am not ready for them to go to assisted living -- or anywhere for that matter. I have not memorized the inventory of houses on every street. I haven't walked enough along the deadend blocks that front the Shark River Inlet on the town’s southern edge.

I haven’t learned to surf. I haven’t paddle-boarded here.

I haven’t spent a winter here.

I haven’t