I stood at the shore, my feet neatly intersecting the high tide line, and watched as the water silently and steadily withdrew from me. Once it passed the breakwater point, it appeared to stop wistfully retreating and instead rushed fervently to a point far beyond where my eyes could see. As if it seemed reluctant to leave at first, but then realized it could not do otherwise and so committed itself to the calling depths.
I stood at the shore and watched as all my sunken dreams and dashed hopes were revealed as the waters pulled away the layers of smothering sand that kept them from my conscious memory.
There were the ships built from lies that I thought would carry me from childhood. These were the remnants of sails sewn according to patterns I was told to follow, patterns I was sold as durable by those that had never seen the sea nor knew how salt water smells once far from a decaying shore. These were the hulls broken open by betrayal, lying on their splintered sides half buried in worm shat sand.
Perhaps the chests of wishes these failed ventures once carried were still there, barely hidden from full inspection by the light of day, waiting for me to rediscover what had inspired me before.
I did not move, but continued watching the ocean recede.
I took a moment to reflect on what more than the ocean is receding from me. Connections elsewhere have become slack and ineffective. I am in a moment of isolation and withdrawal.
I have a choice to make.
I could scavenge the broken dreams and dashed hopes below me. Try to salvage any glittering baubles from my crushed past. But if I do, I will be destroyed when the waters return. The same sand that clings to the debris will also cling to me. Not all graves are marked with fences. But all graves are hungry and will devour whatever enters them.
I could stand where I am in plain sight and wait for rescue. Surely those that are my betters know where I am and in what predicament I find myself. It would be trivial for them to come and lift me to safety. All I must do is have faith, right? Somewhere in the revealed and broken beams of shattered ships below is a dingy called Faith. It did not serve me then. It will not serve me now.
Or I could turn away from the revealed histories and still rotting loyalties. I can face that what comes is more than what I could withstand and take the safest route available. One proven to give me a greater chance than any hope of rescue. I can go to higher ground and leave the ocean behind.
I stood at the shore, my feet neatly intersecting the high tide line. I watched long enough to know that what comes will forever change my life even if I escape any physical harm.
I donned my hat and wrapped my scarf about my neck.
Without apology, without a word, without regret, I turned away from the thick mud of the ocean’s gasping grave and left for higher ground.