Divorce Made It Too Painful to Return to the Jersey Shore

But my ‘Bestie Sister’ was still waiting for me 10 years later

“Come visit me,” she says. “I miss you.”

“I miss you too,” I say. “But I can’t.”

“Why not?” she says.

“I can’t afford it,” I say. “And I have too much on my plate. I have to get through this never-ending divorce.”

“Don’t you miss the shore?” she asks.

“Yes,” I say.

I’m talking to my ‘bestie sister.’

Technically, my ex-husband should have gotten her in our divorce.

We met when we were 23 and 24 on a New Year’s Eve weekend in Eagles Mere. A historic resort town in the Pennsylvania mountains. She had just begun dating one of my then boyfriend’s friends.

I remember arriving that night.

She was sitting on the couch.

She barely looked up while swiping her red nail polish back and forth. Okay, I thought no warm greeting from this girl. I’m not sure if I’m going to like her.

But then she realized I had a little FU in me too.

I can thank my Brooklyn parents for that.

And we bonded.

We spent our summers at the Jersey Shore.

It was three girls and fifteen guys. Most of my ex-husband’s friends didn’t have serious girlfriends for years. It made us bond even further. We were the only girls we had.

One day we were sitting on the beach.

“We’re not going in on a group house in Avalon next summer,” I say.

“What??!!” says the girl who once ignored me.

“Two summers is enough for a deposit on a beach house,” I say.

“But you’ll miss two summers,” she says.

“But I’ll have a beach house,” I say.

I go home that weekend and blow up a picture of my husband and me in Cape May, New Jersey. I put it on the refrigerator in our townhouse. I secured a part-time job and started saving money for a deposit.

Two years later my ‘bestie sister’ and I are sitting on the beach.

“Oh my gosh,” she says. “You did it. You bought a beach house.”

“I know,” I say. “Even I can’t believe it.”

“Tell me how I am going to do it,” she says.

Within a few years, we are both homeowners at the Jersey Shore.

We live around the corner from one another in Sea Isle City.

One block away from the girl who once ignored me.

To be fair, I had to talk her out of Wildwood.

It was a luxurious life.

Not because we made a smart decision at 30 but because we were surrounded by love. Our families came down, our friends came down, and we made our own Shore family…our other Sea Isle Sisters and their families.

Despite the two of us living several states apart…

Every summer and every other stolen moment we reunited and walked side by side, confided our secrets, announced our dreams, raised our boys, and together told the world who we were.

Last week I called the girl who once ignored me.

“I’m definitely coming to the Shore,” I say.

“Oh my gosh,” she says. “I’m so excited!”

“But it’s Thanksgiving week,” I say.

“I don’t care,” she says. “You can stay with me.”

When I walk through her door I’m overwhelmed.

I’m screaming as I hug her.

We can’t stop laughing.

Not then and not the entire night. We’ve remained close and never lost touch. But physically we’ve lost ten years. To a man who wouldn’t divorce me for five and the aftermath that followed as I rebuilt.

She looks exactly the same.

And everything is exactly as it was.

Later that night, we got home from the Princeton in Avalon.

She needs to go to bed since her family is arriving but I can’t sleep.

I need to sit with myself for a moment.

She understands. She turns the lights down low and leaves on the music and gas fireplace for me. I need to be by myself. I need to revisit some of the better memories.

Better memories than any person ever deserves.

Tears roll down my face… full-circle tears.

I’ve had a lot of full-circle moments lately.

These full-circle moments are an incredible blessing after my messy divorce. And this is most definitely one of them. The kind of healing divorce demands but evades for far too long.

It’s been arriving in bits and pieces these past few months.

The final healing touches.

I don’t think coming back to the Jersey Shore would have been so hard if I’d had a normal divorce. One without abuse and an appropriate duration. If that had happened, my divorce would have been a moment in time.

I would have moved forward sooner.

I wouldn’t have been held hostage for a decade.

I would have just lost the money he stole and not myself.

But it’s hard to go back to one of the best times in your life when you’ve not only lost everything but you’re unrecognizable. Despite my ‘bestie sister’ calling me and repeatedly asking me to visit…I didn’t want to revisit that great time.

It was too painful.

I couldn’t find myself in that beach town anymore.

I couldn’t remember that girl.

The one who convinced her to buy a beach house next to me. The one who thought all things were possible. The ever-positive girl who was full of dreams and who got left behind when she tried to leave a man.

I surprised myself sitting on her couch.

The tears weren’t downhearted they were gratitude.

I wasn’t sad that I no longer had my beach house.

Okay, maybe that’s not entirely true. But it’s not what my focus was. Instead of lamenting what was lost, I found myself feeling incredibly blessed. I felt grateful we had that decades-long adventure.

The incredible luxury of time together.

It’s a gift.

One the two of us understand too well. She lost her mother and father when she was 10 and 11 years old. I lost my mom and dad six months apart when I was 28 years old.

The two of us never took a moment for granted.

It’s something I used to joke about with our other ‘Sea Isle Sisters.’

I like to call out a moment.

We would be on the beach together or out somewhere when I would announce, “Girls, it’s a moment! This is a moment!”

It meant something funny, unexpected, or emotional had happened.

They would just laugh.

But I was determined to chronicle it.

I cried when I said goodbye to her.

“I’m coming back,” I say. “I’m not staying away any longer. But it would have been hard to come back any sooner. This was the right timing. I needed to feel like myself again before I came back to the Shore.”

She’s tolerated my absence.

She’s been my buddy, my partner in crime, my confidant, my advisor, my cheerleader, my refuge, and my family…my ‘bestie sister.’ She has laughed with me, partied with me, humored me, and cried with me.

We’ve danced through the night, with the band, and maybe on a few tables.

We’ve had more fun than most.

And we might have a few stories we can’t share.

We forged an indelible bond in our early 20s in the mountains of Pennsylvania. Me and the girl who once ignored me. One it turns out no one could ever break.

She’s the kind of person who doesn’t walk into your life.

She’s one who never leaves it.

Just ask her other friends.

Even when you can’t catch your breath. Even when you abandon yourself. Even when you are no longer remotely familiar. Even when you can’t shut up because you’re in so much pain. Even when you are so scared you think you will never find your way back.

She waits for you.

Ten years later.

In the seaside town, you once both called home.

When fairy tales really did seem to come true.

(Photos below: Author’s Own — All of my Sea Isle Sisters)