Sometimes a walk on the beach can change your whole life and in 2007, I took plenty of them.
It was then that the sea first spoke to me.

Ok, so maybe that's a whimsical exaggeration, but in a sense it did. More accurately though, it was probably the first time that I listened.

I spent more time on the shore that summer than I had in my whole life. It was that summer that I became fully aware of the positive impact the sea had on my psych.

I found every excuse to be close to the shore where my mind felt at ease. I was addicted to the tranquility and dreaded being at home. It wasn't long before I was incorporating sea inspired shades in my home in hopes to recreate the stillness and peace that I was so easily able to achieve along the shore. 

Without that summer's discovery, SeaPaint would never have been born. In fact, SeaPaint was created with this very same concept in mind. Our initial five shades were calm and perfectly coastal, just like my happy place. 

In 2008 a long term friend joined me in one of my walks. He eventually helped me with some car trouble. To repay him, I finally agreed to the one date he'd been begging me for. One date. That's it. Seemed harmless and fair.

That date happened to fall on December 26 and that friend was named Jose.

Jose was one of those guy friends I had sworn off dating. He was genuinely a nice guy and I had a reputation for getting bored of them rather quickly.   Blame it on my ADD baby. He was one of those guys that you liked enough to not set him up for a messy ending.
What if he fell hard and I fell hardly at all? I’d feel awful after all.  
He had been requesting a date for over a year at this point and I'm not sure what made me agree to the "just one" but oddly enough, one would be enough. 

We started off the date in historic Downtown Melbourne. Which sounds quaint, but in the evening it's mostly just a pub crawl. During the day it's a charming and somewhat romantic setting.
Small local shops and eateries. Adorable really. In the evening however it's lined with our buzzed locals. Either way it's a fun time. 

Once we parked, I hopped out. Jose stopped me and popped the trunk of his car. He cheekily pulled out a bottle of Patron and offered me a shot. I politely declined. No way was a I doing shots of tequila. I knew how that would end. My refusal I think startled him a little, but when you ask him now about that night, he claims I was standoffish almost the entire evening. 

That's simply not true. I was standoffish at our first stop, the Mainstream Pub. I do recall avoiding his obvious flirting. This was a one and done remember? Well, by the time we made our last stop in downtown, I had forgotten all about that. 

Hours later, we ended up on the chilly beach. I don't recall who suggested it, but once we were there I wasn't my normal guarded "don't touch me" self. When he snuggled me to keep me warm,  I didn't say no. I knew right then and there that one way or another, our friendship was over. Looking at these pictures now, I realize the address of that beach, adds up to 13. 

Between the calming effects of the shore and his stupid little smirk, I began to fall under a little sea spell. We stayed out till nearly 5 in the morning, neither one of us wanting to go home. 

A week later on January 3rd (1-3) we decided we actually liked each other completely sober too. 13 months later on February 13th, Jose asked me to marry him.  In between then though, we had a great time driving each other crazy and balancing each other out. 

On September 3rd, in 2010, we tied the sea rope in front of some sea grapes, on Pelican Beach located in Satellite Beach. The same location as our first date. The one with the address that equals 13. 

If you break that date down, 9+3+1+0=13

What kind of sorcery is this anyway?