My whole life I’ve lived close to the sea. When I was five or six years old my family used to go to the beach every Sunday. But when kids grow older, those kinds of quality-time-with-the-family afternoons get left behind and we somehow forget the pleasingness of those days.
This break I felt the sea calling, urging me to go back. Those who have ever loved the sea will understand what it is like to feel the need to re-visit that marvelous place. And so I did.
It was different; not like when I was a child. This time I was not making sand castles with my siblings or running around, playing tag with my father. This time I was with my friends: coming together, sharing stories… But my sea was the same, and this “different” was good.
Once I had submerged myself in the water, I felt so astonishingly at peace and, at the same time, alive. It was as though the sea was welcoming me like a long-lost friend, and I felt like I was being held in an embrace that whispered ‘you belong here’. It sounds crazy, but while being there I experienced a feeling of freedom rather indescribable. The waves pushing through me; the sand, soft beneath my feet: it all seemed so peculiar and yet so familiar.
I took some time to appreciate the beauty of it inside and outside the water. It suddenly dawned on me that we don’t usually admire the things we see often, we only do with the ones that are new and unknown to us. But every glimpse I took was so breathtakingly precious, I couldn’t help but stare and contemplate it’s enormity and vastness. I fell in love.
Have you ever stopped doing something for a while, something you really enjoyed? And yet, you only ever notice how much you truly missed it once you start doing it again.
I feel back in love with the feeling of being so tiny and surrounded by such a gigantic natural force; with the beach, my sea. I fell back in love with the thrill of being there and being able to take it all in, even if it was only for a few hours.
