I am not a warm beach person.
I’m not a sun tanning, flip-flops with a cup of iced lemonade, fun in the sun, let’s just have a party here and play beach volley ball for the rest of the day type of person.
I’m a cold beach person.
I like my life the best when the icy spray whips a bit hard on the cheeks and you have to pull on a sweater and wear sturdy shoes because the rocks are sharp.
It is then I feel the most alive.
I like my ocean mixed with a little wildness. Actually, a lot of wildness.
And I like my life the exact same way.
I never want to get to the place were my biggest worry is what I’m going to make for Sunday potluck or if the scrapbook party I planned on Thursday is too much on the schedule, you know, with prayer meeting and getting spring cleaning done.
I never want my life to be totally comfortable.
I want more. I want more like the gospel is more of men in ragged clothes than starched collars and more of camels going through needles than systematic theology.
I want wind that is bigger than little me and great blue waves that I can barely stand up against and grey mist that reminds me I can’t do life on my own and sharp rocks that show where I am walking is where most people decided to take the detour.
It is then when I feel most alive.
I want to live a cold ocean life wherever I am.
Yes, the 2000 dollar car repair bill bites the cheeks and the lack of sleep whips at the body and the cold, the real winter cold, is finally making my teeth chatter when I step outside. Yes, I feel like I am very little and very underqualified for almost everything I am doing.
30 hours of being a bona fide prison guard in one weekend is a little new for a 21-year old menno chick.
Running around all week straddling nurse, medical driver, receptionist, babysitter, and wood-chopper leaves aching, swollen feet by friday night.
And I have another 12 hour night shift just starting. This time as a security guard at the clinic.
But I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
I am standing in a wild ocean life because it is then I feel the most alive.
What makes you feel more alive than anything else?
Esta Doutrich 
About the potlucks and scrap book parties–you’re my sister!
I know the wildness of licking the salt spray off my lips in a gale, and far prefer to live that way than in predictable, plodding ways. Funny, how the things that make me come alive make me both groan AND sparkle. =)
“Funny, how the things that make me come alive make me both groan AND sparkle.”‘ Exactly! I was trying to find words for that. What I truly enjoy often is half hard work and uncomfortable situations–and yet it is FUN. :)’
Yes yes yes.
This is kinda funny, because I had a blog post rolling around in my head about how I’m more of a cold beach person than a warm beach person. It wasn’t as poetic as this one, though. 🙂 But yeah, I feel a little weird, being here, and going to the beach that everybody raves about, and it’s beautiful and all, but it just makes me miss my cold, rugged, feeling-alive beach in Oregon. It’s good to know I’m not the only weird one. 🙂
aw Amy. I would have loved to read you blog on this! You still should!
Funny we were both thinking the same thing 🙂 You are totally not the only weird one. I right there with you.
so true go beyond my comfort zone and find true comfort in trusting in God!
Indeed, that is what it is all about. yes, yes.
If the above anita is anita-author-of-life-is-for-living, its interesting to see that you and esta at least remotely know each other. Esta’s writing reminds me of yours. 🙂
Hm. I belive it is the same Anita…
…but I’m not positive. Anita? Can you answer this? 🙂
yup, it’s me.
My new title is “wroter” because I once wrote a book. 😉
I love this so much – if this would’ve been a speech you gave somewhere, I would’ve stood up and applauded loudly!! 😉 I firmly believe that when we live fully alive — despite the cold ocean waves and wind– we will be the most fulfilled people alive. Because instead of it being about us and our comfortable little lives, it’ll be about God and how we can best further His Kingdom, even when it’s hard. So I say, AMEN and AMEN! *loud cheers*
(Btw I miss talking to you on skype — my computer died about a week ago and I’m still waiting on my hard drive to come)
Thanks friend. I love you bigger than any ocean.
We should talk on skype again. I keep thinking about you…
*HAPPY DANCE* My hard drive CAME TODAY!!!!! So that means skype again!!!! 😀 😀 😀 (Once smart computer brother comes home from work and installs it for me) 😀
in a word-YES!! ❤
I’ve been following your blog for over a month now. I found you through emily smucker. But after that I just have to say: Yes! That’s what it’s about. The American dream is bogus, this is what I want for mu life as well. I’m still working on the deciding part but boring lives make boring people.
By all means! We all are a little crazy deep inside. It is not so much what we do, but that we do it wild 🙂
beautiful…
you are reading my soul 🙂
haha. Considering, Ayonymous, I have no idea who you are, reading your soul is a toss up between my awesome powers or my slight creepiness 😀
This is what I want. To live a life that is fulfilling, & purposeful. God bless you, Esta. ~Dorcas ( P.S. I don’t know if you remember me; I’m Naomi’s sister & I met you on the steps outside the BLC chapel. 🙂 )
Of course I remember you!
I am wanting it right along with you. Someday maybe we’ll meet over potluck dishes and talk over our exciting lives 🙂
Ok I have to come clean here. I am your silent stalker 🙂 your parents gave my parents the link to your blog quite some time ago and I have been following you and thoroughly enjoying your writing. Love your honesty and the way you put into words what so many of us (esp Menno bush chicks) are thinking.
ooo. I love silent stalkers. When I find out about them. I guess I dabble it that quite a bit myself.
I had fun this afternoon catching up on your life through your blog, while I had free moments at the clinic. Menno bush chicks. Ha. Love it! We are a bit of a scarce breed 🙂
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Your writing speaks to me.
Except I love a warm beach if it’s empty.
But the potlucks and the scrapbooking and the spring cleaning?
I so do not want my life to be that small either. Sometimes it gets that way, though.
That’s when I beg God for a vision beyond myself.
How DO you put these things into such good words? Please blog more often.
Thank you Luci!
And I would blog more often, but I am unwilling to sacrifice real living for blogging 🙂 Maybe someday I’ll learn to effectively juggle both….
I ridiculously like this post and echo it with my whole, full heart.
And I echo it back to you. And I know you to be living a wild ocean life so I watch and cheer you on from afar. Your words mean so much because you live them.
Thank you.
Awesome post! It totally brought me back to this summer when I saw the ocean for the very first time. It was a windy day and the water was freezing, but I had tons of fun! I collected oodles of seashells each time the tide would recede along with ten million grains of sand. 🙂 Thanks for the great reminder and life application!
I loved this very much!
I’m so glad I’m not the only wild ocean girl out there.
Living in a summer-beach-tanning-chic land makes me a bit of a misfit.
The cold and the crashing and the rocks, that’s when I feel most alive too.
Life seems so much more special when it gets challenged. When you have to fight for it a little bit.
So I’m glad I’m not the only one who lives that sort of life. 🙂 I think other people miss so much when they run away from the cold and the waves.
And I think we must be related somehow, Esta. :))
Nastya. Again, thank you.
You always have such wonderful words.
And you say you live in a tanning chic land, eh? Please, email me and tell me more about yourself.
Hi, I too, am a silent stalker. Found you…don’t remember how. Anyway, we know some of the same people it seems. I taught school in Bonner’s Ferry for a year.
I was born in WI and miss the snow and cold and wild–although I don’t know the wild like you do.
What makes me come alive? My family, and know we serve God in a unique way here in Thailand. And there’re no cold beaches here, believe me! Yet being where God wants me and realizing that I’m enjoying it, is wonderful these days.
Lisl-
And I laugh. It could be possibly I am also a silent stalker of one Lisl Lattin. Hm.
I have followed you for the exact things your last paragraph said. You give me hope that I can live my wild ocean life at any stage of life.
Thank you for that!
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