Lost in the Waves

Beaches have always been a favourite of mine. It's almost like the sea calls my name, beckoning me to embrace its folds. To throw myself into the waters and have no care in the world is something too special to me. Because when I'm neck-deep in there, I'm nothing. My weight against the force of the waves becomes irrelevant. And I'm not just speaking of the weight of my body but of my heart too. In fact, I think my heart is far more heavy than my body ever will be. After all, it is a museum of everything I have loved and lost and loved again. And the artefacts within it weigh down on me- it makes me slump my shoulders and drag my feet while I should be floating around with ease. It makes even the easiest tasks undoable. But the moment I step into the water, I'm free of it all.

Maybe it is an inherent nature of mine- to dive into something that is ragingly unpredictable. But rage is so dear to me. Unpredictability is so dear to me. It's something I've grown up with. It's something that makes up half the memories of my childhood. If I let go of it, I'm letting go of half of me. So I hold onto it. Even when the sharp edges of it cut into my skin and make me bleed, I hold onto it. I dive into it. I dive into the waters and feel ecstasy in the chilling embrace of something that could potentially end me. And I've never learnt how to swim. I give myself up to fate when I'm in there. And I do know that I should be alarmed by that. But for some reason, I'm not.

There is something too relieving about it all. To be reduced to nothing- to feel all the burdens lifting off your shoulders- to let go of the weight in you and feel what you actually want to feel. At the end of the day, isn't that all there is to being human? To feel. To feel every emotion and to feel it deeply. To make something out of it. To hold people and build homes out of them.

The waves make me feel like nothing else does. It makes me rewind every single incident that has left an imprint on my mind- it makes me reevaluate and analyse it- it makes me process things I've never been able to ever fully process before.

And I know, that sounds far from relieving for we feel not only good things but the bad ones too. But despite whatever emotion in me, I float. I float in the waves. I'm nullified. I'm nothing. I'm able to understand myself deeply without shouldering the pain that comes with it. My happiness, my guilt-all of it- slip away as the waves wash over me. They become fleeting instances of time I can never fully grasp. That's what is comforting about it. That it passes in an instant. That I don't have to dwell on it. The waves hit me and I smile. The waves drown me and I smile. The waves pass me by and I smile. 

But the moment I get off the water, the heaviness returns. Tenfold.

And I detest that. Entirely.

And I long to reach for the waves again. Entirely.