Loving myself into the new year
- Melissa Herrera: Not Waiting for Friday
- January 12, 2025
- 409
Last week I let myself be loved by a circle of friends. This past year was a difficult one with sickness and surgery attempting to topple my house of cards. I tend those cards well, tiptoeing past them so nary a slight breath of exhaled air makes them fall.
When a friend invited a small group of friends to come to Hilton Head and relax for several days, I hesitated. What if George needs me? What if I shouldn’t spend the money? What if?
But I shut out all the voices and went, and on New Year’s Day, we drove 12 hours and arrived at her sea loft on Hilton Head Island. From Wednesday to Sunday, I was taken care of well with frothy coffees, delicious breakfasts and succulent seafood. We thrifted and slept and snacked and talked.
I let go of every care I had and just existed. It’s hard for me to lay down cares and let someone love me well. My personality (I discovered on this trip) is Melancholy-Phlegmatic.
Over breakfast that lasted until 2:30 p.m., our talks led to personality types and why we do the things we do. Knowing who we are and why can help us live better inside our own bodies. After taking the personality test, my clinical counselor friend put on her counselor voice and read me my description over mimosas. I had to chuckle because it was dead on.
“The Melancholy-Phlegmatic is a pleasant and accommodating person who tends to seek a structured environment requiring attention to detail. They have a self-sacrificing, self-critical nature and struggle with guilt feelings about things that are not often their fault.”
There was a lot more to it, but we ended up discovering what each one of us was. If anything, it was eye-opening.
I love who Missy Herrera is. Not everyone has to, but my friends, they loved me well. Allowing them to do for me was what I took from this trip. I didn’t have to do it all or micromanage what I thought was my job. There was no judgment, and love, well, that’s all I felt.
It was cold in South Carolina last week, and we woke up to temps in the 30s. So we snuggled in and drank coffee until it warmed up into the 50s. I went out one day without makeup — we all did — and for me that was freeing. A well-moisturized face is all you need sometimes.
We visited five different thrift stores and found the most insane treasures that she will drive back up to Ohio when she comes home later this week. Never judge a thrift store by its name is what we discovered. I am excited to welcome the red lady and the lion into my home when they get here.
Sunday came too quickly. Three of us flew home from the Savannah airport into a cold, gray Ohio. The sunshine had injected us with a dose of vitamin C to last for another month.
I did glimpse the ocean. We walked out beside the dunes that line the shore, and I watched a few waves roll in. A man who was walking the beach with his wife strolled past us and stopped to reprimand me for standing 50 feet from the dunes. The dunes are off limits, and I, a grown woman, can read a sign. I was well away from the dunes, and I realized that maybe he too needed several days away from his home. He needed a better perspective than the one he’s let himself live inside. Maybe he needed a little love from his friends just like me.
We snapped the picture and went back to the car, laughing off his words with a tilt of our heads. We all need to let ourselves be loved in unexpected places.
Melissa Herrera is a reflective writer who captures the beauty and sorrow of change. With a career spanning 14 years as an opinion columnist and the publication of two books, she resides in Stark County with her husband and four cats. She writes to preserve memories. You can reach her at junkbabe68@gmail.com.