Choppy Waters

Yesterday the sea was calm.

Today the waves returned with another house showing, stirring memories of a future I once planned. For a few minutes, I mourned the version of life I thought I was already sailing toward—the one I held in my hands, certain it was leading me toward a life with him.

Now my next move has to support what is best for me in the months ahead. It feels liberating, layered with sorrow.

A tightness gripped my chest—that familiar desperation to turn back time, to rewrite what cannot be rewritten. The wolves howled their old refrain: He will never forgive you. He will never love or trust you again. Your future with him is gone.

But then I remembered something.

This wave doesn’t have to be the same one that nearly drowned me a month ago.

It wasn’t carrying despair.

It was carrying a memory.

And that is when I realized…

I'm still in choppy water.

But I'm no longer drifting.

Hope doesn’t promise calm seas. It simply hands you a compass for when they rise again.

I know these waves will return. Even when I see them coming, they can still knock the wind out of me.

And yet, this rupture has a silver lining. I wouldn’t choose the storm again — but I wouldn’t trade the woman I met because I sailed through it.

I made a painful mistake in a relationship that mattered deeply to me. I’m choosing to learn from it rather than define myself by it.

The pain was real.

The growth was real.

Healing isn’t linear. It’s navigating through choppy waters, trusting that eventually, you will reach the shore.

The shore hasn't appeared yet.

But my compass still points toward it.

Today, that's enough