Tide Comes In, Tide Goes Out

A summer of distractedness. Of five hundred thoughts at once, all the things you want to do and say and create. All the places calling you, and the people you haven't seen. The mundane hours of work where you long to be elsewhere, and the exhaustion that hits just after. The free hours, when everything comes crashing in and you cannot choose which to pursue; too many lives to live, too little time. When you embrace all the many ways you feel, just because you feel them: the happiness, the sadness, the defeat and the recovery. When you are tired of seeing your own face in the mirror, and hearing your own voice in your head, and the flip side, when you are free in who you are, because it's you: your stories, your inconsistencies, your body. Your truths. When you feel insignificant, and when you feel you are too much. The panic, when you think life cannot possibly be what it should, and the exhilaration when it is and you know it straight through to your bones. The big things, and the uncertainty they bring: are you doing them right? Are you doing them at all? Are you living enough? The simple things, and the harmony they bring: the evening sun melting down as you run beneath it; a child's breath, in and out, safely; a glance, a conversation, that expression you just made.

The moment when you are finally still, conscious of your breathing.

Grateful to be alive.