The white foam is bubbly, laughing as it tickles my toes. It’s icy and hot at the same time, alien but familiar, expected yet surprising. It’s so far away that I venture closer each time, insisting to myself that I’ve not gotten close enough to it yet. And every time I get closer to it, it draws frighteningly close, becomes too real, and then I berate myself for being lured in by its tantalizing lull. Sometimes I’ll be standing in just the right spot and then it’ll wash up just above my ankles and the shock is as much a delightful surprise as it is an uncomfortable presence. If I go too close, it engulfs me, pulling me closer to the deep blue, and if I stay too far, it barely touches the sand feet away from me and pulls back, disappointed.
I like the ocean. It’s warm and familiar, something etched into my memories for as long as I remember, but it’s different too- foreign. I could return to the same beach and the same spot a thousand times, and a thousand times it would be different. A thousand more people have walked its shores, a thousand more crabs have tunneled through the wet sand; a thousand more shells washed up, a thousand more memories made and cast away.
It’s so big, so vast an expanse, endless. Physically, it has boundaries. But if you look beyond what the eye can see, it really has none. And sometimes, I wish I, too, could be like the ocean and forget. Be like time and forget.
The icy shock of the water is painful, and my feet scream at me to get out. But I stay, fascinated by the swirling grains around my toes, by the sand engulfing my feet, and by the footprints left behind when the water has quietly taken its leave. The pain, however temporary, still lingers, and it takes a little longer than a few minutes to disappear. I don’t complain, though the icy shards stab painfully from every which way. It’s cold to the point where I nearly give up, wanting to hop out of the ocean spray and stamp around on the warm sand until the icy prickles have gone away. But I don’t. The pain I can bear. It’s easier to put up with. Besides, it vanishes in a little bit. And then I am numb, not just to the water, but to the world.
Nothing else exists but the endless sea and me. Just me. Someone small, someone quiet, someone hopeful and sad and wistful. I’m paper-thin, easily be carried away by the water. Sometimes I wish I could be.
The numbness I like. To be oblivious to pain, impervious to harm. To be safe from the cruel brokenness of the world. But it’s not something I would ever want to consume me. Part of me fears it has, and it’s this part of me I despise. Despise the indifference, despise the brokenness and oblivion I live in. I am afraid to say, “I don’t care.” I am afraid to say, “I’m not human; I’m not sane.” I am afraid to be apathetic. I want to care, I want to be genuinely sincere, and for the most part, I hope I am. But really, if we look at the world, it’s nothing special, nothing different, for people to say, “I care for none and nothing but me.” And honestly, who can blame them? The world has taught them this much, and is it not from our parents and peers that we learn?
After a period of time, I step out of the water, though my feet are still numb. I cannot feel the air, but I can still feel the sand beneath my wet feet. And this, too, hurts. The rough scratchiness of it all, the rasping of the grains against my bare skin. Pain, too, likes to visit in times of quiet happiness. Pain is inevitable. But pain is temporary.
I hurt and think and hurt and remain silent. And I walk the quiet streets clutching in my small, curled hand a string. And attached to that string? A dream. Something a little brighter than the sun and a little darker than the night. Something so real it seems tangible, something so distant it’s a mere fantasy.
But I, like an absolute imbecile, dare to hope. Dare to dream and dare to wish, knowing full well that I might collapse under the pressures of society and the relentless push of time. There’s got to be more; more than where the sky meets the sea, more than where the sun sets on the west and rises in the east. More than sitting at a desk day after day and telling myself, “Today’s going to be different.” More than dreaming and wishing and hoping. I’m tired of pretending and running the same wheel for all of eternity, tired of staying in the same place, tired of not knowing where I want to go and who I am. So here I stand, at the beginning of a cold, rugged road, armed with nothing but a thread. And with it, I know I can take this journey by storm. Because I don’t want to run this rat race anymore. I want out.