The Tides of Memory
Grief is a tide. It waits until I am steady, until my lungs are full of air, and then it crashes without warning. A smile, a laugh, the memory of her hand in mine—and suddenly I am underwater, knocked breathless by everything I thought I had tucked safely away.
These last days, I have missed her with an ache that feels like hunger. The kind of hunger that gnaws, that consumes, that makes you wonder if you’ll ever be full again. Her eyes come to me first—the way they could soften and spark all at once. Then her smile, easy and disarming. Then her laughter, ringing out like it was made to cut through darkness. I close my eyes and I am back there: in the passenger seat on a drive to nowhere, with music humming low and her hand brushing mine; in a tent beneath the trees, firelight painting shadows on our faces; on vacations where the world felt paused, where even ordinary mornings became golden.
The good memories arrive in waves, relentless, sweeping me off my feet and pulling me under. And I do not stop them. How could I? To deny their power would be to deny the truth of what once lived between us. They were real. They mattered. They are stitched into the marrow of who I am.
But here is the paradox I cannot escape: I know it is over. Not the memories—they will live forever—but the life itself. The possibility of return. The illusion that somehow, if I reached back far enough, I could stitch it all together again. There is no going back. To try would not be devotion. It would be betrayal. Betrayal of everything I have fought to reclaim. Betrayal of the child in the wings who deserves a love that does not demand she wear a mask. Betrayal of the woman I am becoming—the one who has survived too much to keep collapsing herself for the comfort of another.
And so I stand here, pulled between love and truth, wave after wave. Some days the water is merciful, brushing my ankles. Other days it rises so high I cannot breathe. I miss her. God, I miss her. There are moments when the longing is so sharp it feels like I might split open from it. But missing her is not the same as needing to go back. Missing her is not belonging. Missing her is not the map.
What I know—what I cling to, even when the tide tries to tear it from me—is this: the love that was real does not have to be denied, but it also does not have to dictate my return. Love and grief can coexist. The ache can roar. And still, I can remain standing on the shore.
The truth is simple and devastating: it is over. And the truth is luminous and liberating: I am still here. I am still rising, even when the waves knock me down. I am still learning to trust that the tide will recede, and when it does, I will breathe again.
So let the water come. Let it drag me under, let it remind me of what was, let it wring the air from my lungs. I will not pretend it doesn’t hurt. It does. It hurts enough to make me howl. But when the tide goes out, as it always does, I will honor myself more.
Because grief does not mean return. Missing does not mean belonging. The waves do not decide my direction. And even when the sea is merciless, I know how to swim. 🌙
