Nothing loosens the tightness in my chest like the sea.
No, I’m not talking about a literal tightness, caused by a virus or some other negative health problem. I’m talking about that bit of me that gets so knotted up with anxiety, fear, sadness, and grief that I can’t breathe or find my way back to hope again.
What a season.
A season that I don’t know what to do with.
I don’t know what to do with the anxiety I feel as I watch the virus case numbers explode in my home country. I hear my friends who are also nurses plead with the general public to please consider others wear a mask, while at the same time others, by the thousands, are protesting against leaders and laws requiring them to do so.
I don’t know what to do with the compounding election anxiety that I hoped would dissipate in the first week of November but actually hasn’t, because this election cycle revealed such deep division and hatred and anger and hurt that I don’t know how we come out of it as a nation, a family, a community. I don’t know how to hold on to friendships across this great divide, where I feel a veil has been lifted and I’ve seen the truth about the evils of humanity I haven’t before recognized, not just in ‘other people’ but in people I once would have trusted with my life. I don’t know how to hold on to relationships when they are so angry, or unwilling to dialogue, and I also don’t know how to just let the relationship go without falling to pieces.
I don’t know what to do with my lingering frustrations in a job that I simultaneously love because of it’s potential but struggle because of it’s reality right now. The fact is my day-to-day looks nothing like it should, and while I’m eternally grateful to have a steady job, I can only wish that gratitude would lead to an enjoyment that has not come to fruition.
I don’t know what to do with the grief and the disappointment; another cancelled event, another delay in a start date, another holiday spent alone, another relationship stagnated, another friend sick or grieving, another jump in cases and the increasing uncertainty that comes with it.
And so when I found myself not knowing anything anymore, and feeling like I couldn’t breathe, I came to the sea, because it is here I can find my center again. And it did not disappoint. There’s just something about the relentless crashing of water on sand, the salty spray that leaves my sunglasses foggy, the wind whipping my hair into knots and my heart into a place of peace.
And I think about all the things I don’t know, and they’re still there, but I have the space to remind myself of the things I do know. Things like someday this will be that one season that we’ll remember not as a season of lonely but as a season of quiet. Love is always the right answer, and it will always win in the end. Putting one foot in front of the other and doing the best I can is enough. Letting go of control is scary but also the most important thing I can do. It’s called trust. There are people who love me out there no matter how lonely I feel. I am so much stronger than I give myself credit for. Good things are coming. And I have so much to be so grateful for.
I only hopped down here for the long weekend but I am so glad I did.
Let us begin 