Leaving a mark

I’ve been walking beaches, picking up shells, feeling the wind on my face and listening to the surf. I have been lulled by the sea. My mind has wandered and I have been touched by the vastness of time.  Eternity makes a person feel small – eternity makes this day short and splendid and unique. Eternity and this moment belong to me. I am a product of all the yesterdays.

My lifetime is but a blink in all this eternity. The mark I am making on this planet is as permanent as the space between waves, the time between tides.  But I am here now and this moment is eternal.  This moment is mine.

I have put in too many days where the minutes dragged and piled up upon themselves.  I’ve tripped on hours and waited for the sun to set so I could put another day to bed.  I have cursed too many mornings. My tomorrows have looked bleak and I have hurried them into yesterdays.  

We had a tremendous loss, a life altering experience – we will never be the same.  We can never be the same. The people we are today have only just begun their journey in their new skin; the fatherless, the widow; and everything has been blinding and overwhelming. Our exteriors don’t reflect the interior metamorphosis; we have been bruised and broken and have run out of glue over and over again. Slowly we are rebuilding the people who have to move forward from here and it has been painful. 

The ocean reminded me of who I used to be, the surf gave voice to memory.  ‘Take us with you’, the memories seemed to say, ‘build on us – lean on us – we are the glue’. I felt warm tears sneak from beneath my sunglasses, salty like the water inching up the beach and there was a strange comfort in that, a release. It’s okay to cry, to acknowledge the broken heart, but it’s also okay to keep walking, to keep moving forward. This moment in time will never come again. The tide will sweep the beach, the waves will keep on rolling. Eternity will grab all the todays and turn them into yesterdays and I want to be part of that – I want to leave a mark.