The ocean is the love of my life. It is so inspiring to me. I love the idea that through all different parts of the world we are all together in that big body of water. The ocean has no prejudice and no judgement. I love its consistency. No matter what enters or who leaves, the ocean is never phased. So much goes on in that everlasting body of water and it just keeps flowing and doing its thing. I love how small it makes me feel and its ability to be gentle, yet strong. I want to be like that. I want the presence of my problems to not cause me a single worry. No matter what walks into my life, I will continue to flow and do my own thing. I simply love the ocean and all that it can be.

When the ocean makes me feel so small, it puts me at ease. I’m the kind of girl that cares what people think. I constantly feel attacked, as if people are teasing me or judging me. I always feel like people are looking at me funny. But the ocean doesn’t even notice me. My presence in the ocean does not affect it in the least. Whether I am standing there or not, the water will still wash up on shore and flow back to itself. Whether I am out there or not, those waves will still rise tall and crash hard. My presence doesn’t not cause a worry to the ocean. As someone who feels like I always stick out, the ocean makes me feel like I fit in. It makes me invisible in the kind of way I always wish I were.

The ocean deals with everyone and everything. The moon, the people, the fish, the tides. It pays them no mind. It will continue to do its own thing no matter what. When there is even a slight hiccup in my life, I conjure it up to feel like the biggest and hardest problems I could ever have to face. Being locked in my bedroom curled up all alone in the covers, I am the biggest issue. I am the only thing that my bedroom ever deals with. But when I step into the ocean, somehow its size puts me back into reality of how minor my problems are and how minor I am on this earth. I am just one little bitty person constantly surrounded by many others who are also dealing with their own huge hiccups.

The salt water clears my skin. It washes the tear streaks off my cheeks and rinses my clammy, panicked hands. It can cleanse my ears of all the terrible things I hear on the news or threw the walls. When the water is ice cold and you go under for the first time it is like a shock. It forces me to lift my head and gasp for air. It reminds me of what it is like to be alive. So often I go through the day, living and breathing, without a second thought. That gasp that the ocean forces me to take reminds me that “you are alive.”