It has been awhile since I’ve seen you, felt you, breathed you. I still cannot believe I ever left you. As I drive into the sandy parking lot of my favorite beach spot I cannot help but take in a deep breath of excitement and anticipation. I have been waiting for this moment for months, since the last time we met.

Growing up with a father who craved nothing more than to be in the water, you could say the same feelings were passed down. There would be so many mornings where I would wake up and tell my mother that last night I dreamt of the ocean and as I would reflect on those dreams I would daydream of the next time I would visit you. Even as a baby I loved being in the water so much that my parents joked that I must’ve been born in the water. I still think it is funny how even with all the love and fascination I had for you I grew up pursuing passions on land, like soccer, softball and dance not playing beach soccer or learning how to surf until my later teen years. Although I cannot remember a bad memory I have ever had with you I look back on my short life and I realize that you have played such a large part in it. While I did love you I did not always feel I could trust myself with you. You were so big and vast holding so many secrets that I, a small human, felt vulnerable and fragile. When I was young you represented the unknown and adventuring your deep waters while exciting meant learning more about who I was and seeing the deepest parts of myself.

On my saddest and most stressful days, I knew that being near you would put me at peace. Nothing seemed to relax me more than watching the blue crystal waves roll and crash like seeing a beautiful waltz ending with a kiss on the sand. When I needed clarity or to feel closer to God somehow being closer to you always helped. Standing with my toes in the sand admiring creation became my favorite pastime and something I would never trade for the world. I always wondered how your soft breeze, like a siren song, beckoned so many to return to you time and time again. It must be because you allow people to see to the ends of the earth or because even through the storms you always promise a rainbow and blue skies.

To many like myself, you are so much more than a body of water, you are a metaphor for life's challenges. You represent the light and the dark, the islands of isolation and the beauty in the struggle. Like many people who seem happy on the outside and at war on the inside you never cease to smile with sunlight, yet are almost always in a constant battle with wind, rain, and storms that we do not always see. You are a constant reminder to go with the flow and to take it easy. Thank you for always being there, for the times we’ve had and the times we will have and as I prepare to leave you once again, tears well up in my eyes for even though I have not left you yet, I miss you.