sometimes my anxieties are like intricately built sandcastles. i have been known to worry and fret over these sandcastles for hours, even days, at a time. i will collect millions of grains of sand and sloppily sculpt them. they are not usually beautiful or special or anything worth my time at all, but i continue build these castles. it’s like i have to. if i stop, what else is there anymore? what do i do? there is a sandcastle for all of my worries, all of the things that shiver beneath my chest for too long, anything that leaves my bones aching after all of the clocks plead midnight.

a year ago i was sitting on a sun-painted beach surrounded by two thousand sandcastles. the wind was beating the breath out of my lungs. the ocean was far off, so far i could hardly even see the dancing silver waters. i kept building them. i was tired and i was crying and building these hideous sandcastles of anxiety with my bare hands. people would pass me by, briefly, shaking their heads like i was something broken. i was miserable. i was always alone and i did nothing but build sandcastles. a year ago i was sad but no one knew why. a year ago i was sad but i didn’t know why.

but now i know you and the ocean is much closer, i can see it pushing back and forth all hours of the day and feel its song, because you are the ever-present waters that collapse my anxieties. i still build them often, but you continually take them away from me and they are forgotten. i do not know where you put them. i just know that every time i speak to you, you extend your long arms around them and they crumble. most of the time now it’s just me sitting on wet sand as the white-wash curves of your waves swallow every one up. i make you laugh and my anxieties sink. every new worry i have, your edges swim to the shore and carry it off. no matter how quick i try to build them, every time i blink they will be gone. i don’t know how you do it.

sometimes i think about joining you in the sea, but i’m scared. i don’t want to lose that part of myself. i’m afraid of what i won’t have anymore if i leave this fragile collection of crumbled sandcastles behind. i’ve fallen in love with the call of the sea and the storms that it brews, but i can’t abandon land just yet. your waves silently ask me all of the time but i can’t let go of this just yet.

i hope one day, when i’m ready, the ocean will gently carry me away, too.