Postcards from Exile: Carolina Beach

Book III of My Life Has Entered the Prologue Phase

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I don’t remember much of the drive to Carolina Beach.

Hard to remember much on a night like that. I didn’t leave until 11:30PM, and the whole trip was spent pushing through the inky darkness of a moonless night.

I’d wanted to leave before sunset, but a last minute disagreement turned into a last-minute argument that lasted a lot more than a minute.

The exact thing I didn’t want to happen. The exact way I didn’t want to leave.

I’d been anticipating the day I’d have to say goodbye to my kids with dread and overwhelming sadness for months. Not because I wouldn’t ever be seeing them again, but because it might very well be the last time I lived under the same roof with them. The last time I got random hugs from Mia throughout the day, or got lie in Bed with Eli and watch our favorite travel videos on YouTube as he drifted off to sleep. The last time I’d get to have long conversations on the way to school with Alex and Jude. The last time I’d lie in bed, annoyed but also amused, listening to Ivan laughing over Discord with his friends in Phoenix — three time zones behind — as they played games together until the wee hours of the morning. The last time I’d be there when Sophie came home late from work and regaled us with the stories of stupid things that happen in a retail cookie store. The last time I’d see Liam in the kitchen baking something random like he’s training to be a pastry chef.

Even under the best of separation circumstances, I knew this departure would change my relationship with them forever, and I’d been grieving it, knowing it was coming, for a long time.

I wanted to leave in peace. I wanted to hug them all and ugly cry and force myself to just get in the car and drive, even if I had to pull over to wipe away the tears.

But it all went sideways, like it often does. Conflict showing up unexpectedly, with no more emotional buffer to keep a spark from turning into a blaze. The way things went underscored why I had to leave, at least for a while, but also made it all feel so much more final than I hope it will be.

There were no pullovers, and no tears. There was just this numb, strange, feeling of almost-relief.

Maybe I was just burned out. Maybe I was just relieved to be out of the hot zone. Maybe my brain was performing some kind of self-protective chemical lobotomy.

Maybe I’ll never know for sure.

When I finally got to the cheap little single-bed motel room I’d booked, it was just a few minutes before 2AM. The room was tidy and clean, but a thin dusting of ever-present beach sand coated spots on the laminate faux-wood floor, which seemed to lack any underlayment at all in certain spots. A couple of times, the floorboard dipped so severely as I walked across them that I thought my foot was going to puncture straight through.

I’d picked up a single Bud Light from a gas station on my way into town, and I sipped it as I turned on the shower.

I’d made a promise not to have a drop to drink in my final week at home, because alcohol doesn’t just dull the sharp edges of pain, it lubricates its overflow into the world. I didn’t want to succumb to another emotional outburst because I needed to numb the hurt. I didn’t want to subject anyone else in the house to one even more.

The beer was cold and even a little refreshing, but even though I had moved beyond the boundaries of my promise, my desire to drink like a suffering Irishman was gone. I felt weirdly calm, considering that I’d just stepped out of Book II of my life and into the wild unknown of Book III.

That’s how I keep finding myself thinking about the place I am in my own story: as distinct volumes within a lifelong, unified narrative. Book I was childhood through college graduation and just beyond. Book II began on the day I got married in July, 2003, and lasted right up until the night of Tuesday, September 23rd, 2025.

Book III opened the moment I got into my “new” used car — I keep referring to it in my mind as “Escape Pod I” — and drove off into the night of whatever comes next.

I’d never been to the North Carolina coast, but I’d chosen to stay there, that first night away from home, as a kind of minimal stepping stone. Not knowing how I would be feeling, I wanted to avoid a long drive the first night, and I also wanted to bring my pain to the ocean like an old woman lighting a prayer candle in church. The delay in my departure meant it was way too late and I was way too tired to walk the two blocks to the beach in the dark when I got in. Instead, I took a shower and finished my beer and laid in the double bed alone and looked at my phone until I could no longer resist the need to close my eyes and drift off.

In the morning, I let myself sleep as long as I could without running into checkout time. Then I packed up my stuff, put everything in the car, and headed off on foot in the direction of the boardwalk. As I rounded a corner, I saw a coffee shop that oozed the kind of vibe that signals quality brew. I stepped inside and grabbed an iced latte and then continued, drink in hand, to the shore.

Something I have always loved about the ocean is the fact that no matter how big your problems are, the sea is infinitely more vast. There’s something about sitting on a misty coastline, letting the brown noise of the surf drown out your interior chaos, feeling the energetic ebb and flow of the tide. It’s like how I’d imagine it might feel if you were sitting face to face with God.

After making my visit, I hoofed it back to the motel, where I’d left my car. The temperature was already climbing above 80 and the sun felt intense. It was hard to believe it was late September and not even noon. A dozen miles or so up the road, I grabbed breakfast at a diner that was clearly a local favorite. An omelet and more coffee. I don’t know what it is, but sometimes, diner coffee scratches a very old-fashioned itch. This coffee in particular wasn’t half-bad. Must have been a fresh can of Foldger’s.

As I got back on the road, heading north, I noticed I’d missed a call from Paul, one of my oldest friends, and rang him back. We talked briefly about what was going on. I apologized for not being in touch lately, and explained that I have a tendency to hide my embarrassment and shame from my friends instead of going to them with it.

“It’s a bad habit, I know.”

He asked if there was anything he could do.

I said, “Well, you’re in Virginia and I’ll be driving through there tonight. I was wondering if maybe I could visit and crash there for the night.”

Paul, who owns a decent-sized herd of cattle and sells quality beef both locally and across the country, promised me bourbon and steaks and a place to sleep, so I headed his way.

I turned on the audiobook for Leviathan Wakes, from my favorite science fiction series, The Expanse. I’ve listened to it several times, but these days, I’ll take anything familiar, including stories and characters I know so well they fit like an old shoe.

I was nervous and a bit stunned. I didn’t know what the future held, but for the first time in a long time, I felt like I could breathe.

And for the moment, that had to be enough.

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