something like... hope floats

there is something about the ocean... the simple smell and feel of salt water quickly washing up onto the shore and pulling back into the depths of the dark ocean. there is something about living here on the exact spot where salt water and fresh water exchange in perfect harmony. the water runs down from the mountain where it was dropped after evaporating from the place that it returns to. the circle, the symbolism, the cycle... the sheer beauty and pureness that are involved in the circulation of the ocean.

i have long thought that all problems are smaller when by water - these waters come from distant lands and have touched the dreams, hopes and thoughts of millions of people over thousands of years. how can i be so self centered as to believe that my thoughts, worries, anxieties, imperfections, questions and doubts are any bigger or smaller than all of the rest. the ocean is my confidant, my home and the place i go when i need everything to come back into perspective. i often talk of being by water and how much that means to me - it is a place to recharge and literally leave myself.... i am able for that small period of time to forget about all the things that i obsess over and become calmer and more certain.

everything is smaller by the ocean and that is reassuring and soothing.

i am grateful for this summer. i am grateful for this island and for what has come from it. the moments - happy, wonderous, bittersweet and frightening. i am a better version of myself for them.

on arrival here i wondered what the hell i had done. it was pouring rain in black fat drops; it was cold, windy and dark. i slept in a soaking wet tent for three days and cried for at least part of the day during each of them. i wandered around the area and looked at the mountains, trees, sky and ocean and felt like there was something here if i could just be strong enough to stick it out. i found tim ferris' carving in the table at the arctic bar and used it as a touchstone. i watched people and wondered what it would feel like to call this home. mostly i ached out of homesickness and worry that things wouldn't work out. in all my moves and all my searching i have never felt so isolated and so afraid that this was the one time i had gone too far.

four months later i have that kaleidoscope of memories and moments and they are all mine. i no longer need a touchstone or a voice from miles and miles away. i met myself here in the long days. i found the perfect salt to fresh water exchange. i learned what i was really made of.. and what i could aspire to be if i put my heart into it. i could in fact be the best version of myself.

with that said i have great hope. i have great dreams. tonight as the sunsets in a light show of yellow, blue and orange i know (perhaps for the first time) that what i came here to figure out is "what if" and only now can i say i know the answer to that.

the answer is that "if" can happen all it wants and i will remain. those moments of strength and certainty aren't traded or changed when i regress or have a moment. each moment exists... they simply exist in a collage of everything i have done.

tonight i am proud. i am sated. i am certain. all the other things simply wash away back into the depths of the ocean - i can leave whatever impedes my progress on the beach and be certain that when the salt water to fresh water exchange happens that in return i will receive the happy moments that have floated to the top.