Find me breathing

If I were to paint my life I would paint it always on the edge of the shoreline. Sometimes I imagine that my heart swells just because it carries some of the dangerously beautiful ocean within it, almost as if it was born of it. There are moments that I forget my place and begin to feel the breathless ache for what could only be called home. I don’t know when it started, but as far back as I can remember I’ve always known this love affair with the ocean.



It was only a year ago that one of my dear friends started to point out a consistent problem in my day to day; I simply wasn’t breathing. At first I thought she was crazy and I gave her a hard time for making an issue out of nothing, but I slowly realized that she was right. I was living off of shallow breaths and never taking the time to breathe deeply like my body needed me to.  Now it wasn’t until this past September that I realized the significance behind my breathing problem... and it’s directly connected to my relationship with the beach.

This year is the first time in years that my family did not go to Long Beach Island (or any beach for that matter) for vacation. I realized after September came and went that every year for the past ten years we’ve held our breaths till we were able to rest our weary hearts at the shoreline. I don’t know that we planned it to be that way, but its as if we waited to release a sigh of relief and breathe deeply till we were standing at the ocean letting go of a years worth of pain held in. At least that’s how I’ve related to the shore…



I’ve never been one to rush into the ocean upon arrival after three hours of driving, almost as if the childlike buttons lining my heart have been stuck in sleep and cannot be accessed without the hand of another holding mine and leading the way.

I approach the ocean much like a long lost love that I must slowly take in and remember...  it takes time. I stand at the edge of the shoreline and let my toes sink in, only hoping that somehow that will keep me rooted there forever. I then begin to give all my senses a chance to slowly be awakened to the ache that will finally be met with what feels like a comforting embrace, and finally, I exhale the breath held for far too long and I begin to breathe.



It’s there that I wrestle with the questions that have merely accompanied the weight that I slowly push from my heavy heart. My chest aches from the pounding of the unknown upon my humanity; the tension of waiting within the confusing in-between. But still, my heart melts with every deep breath taken and then released and I begin to imagine myself captured only by this dangerous beauty before me. This is the moment that reaches into the depths of my soul and whispers, “You are far from alone, My love… I am with you.”



This is home.



Now I realize that I can’t spend my life holding my breath and living off of what can only be known as shallow and barely there, and I’ve begun to practice the art of remembering to breathe. It takes time.



But here I am… if you look you’ll find me breathing.