Home. It’s a powerful word. I’ve lived in 3 houses and owned a beach for 2 years and even though all these places are special, the place that means the most to me is my grandmother’s house. 

It’s a place that holds all my favorite memories. The smell of the salty ocean, the feeling of sand on bare feet, the taste of fresh crabs straight from the bay, if I could move there; I would. 

Normally when we go down, we only spend up to 6 days at a time there because of how busy we are. But this past summer, I got to spend a bit longer there. This time, I was by myself. My dad drove me down, stayed for a day, then it was just me, my grandmother, my great aunt, and my cousin. I’ve never spent time with my extended family without my immediate family. Before I went, I was getting nervous, wondering what I would do with just my grandma and aunt, or with my cousin who is 4 years older than me. I’m really close with her, but normally there is a group of us, not 1 on 1. 

Even though I was nervous, I was still really happy I was going down. I got the whole back room to myself, not having to share it with my sisters. I didn’t have to take turns sitting in the front seat of my cousin’s car. We got to stay out later and drive around with the windows down and the music blasting, trying to sing against the Wind. We made late night trips to restaurants and got up early to see the sun rise. I got to go with her to her follow-up job interview, and meet her boss(he told me next summer I could work there). We would spend all day, morning-to-night doing almost the same things everyday: wake up early and watch the sunrise then go back to bed. We would check in with my grandma and aunt then go back out and get something for lunch. Most of the time we stopped at where she was soon going to work(and me too). As the evening went on we would go back to Grammys and we would all play card games and eat dinner. Once it was late, we would make our way back to her house and stop at Wawa and get food that we ate while we stayed up watching Criminal Minds and debating on whether we should actually get up early or not.

Next thing I knew my dad was back down to pick me up and I was asking to stay even longer. Spending time down the beach for longer than usual felt different, but was still a lot of fun, especially considering I didn’t have my friends or siblings with me. As soon as we left I asked my parents if I could do the same thing next summer, but for even longer.