Floundering

I miss the water of the ocean. I miss the tranquility of the shore, the lapping water, the cry of the seagulls, the smell of the salty breeze. I miss the dancing reflection off the waves that slowly creep up the sand to lick my toes before stealing away again, an eternal rhythm that never fails or fades.

Perhaps, though, what I really miss is how I felt there- like everything in perspective was manageable and whole. It is hard to hold on to the peace when everything is falling apart without reason. Grasping at fragments of reality that seem to slip and cut with each renewed effort to hold on. I never wanted to feel the way I felt tonight, despite knowing in my head that it was never intended to hurt me that way, my heart is wounded and my brittle shell is cracking. I remember all too well the desperate wondering if I would ever be enough, if the whole of myself was fulfilling enough to fill a soul for an eternity of loving. And then failing that before, wondering if I had gotten far enough along to meet a new kind of standard, a new kind of acceptance. And allowing myself the luz=xury of thinking that it was Ok now. That I was safe from that feeling, that dread, that sinking. I am not drowning yet.

It is a stage, I know. A moment, or a passing phase. And the sun will return tomorrow but tonight, in the tender and fragile solitude of night, I am missing...something. I am floundering.