After the Hurricane, Still Salty

I recognize that, for the most part, I’m the source of my own issues.*

I’ve made choices. I’ve said things, done things, and avoided things that led me here.

And no, I do not mean here as in sitting on the floor, clothes strewn from closet to bed, wondering what could have possessed me to make this trip.

I mean here. This version of myself. This state of existence. This particular shoreline I’ve washed up on.

I could tell you that getting here was outside of my control. I could say the universe conspired against me, that I’ve simply been unlucky, that I can’t catch a break. I could probably make you believe it, too.

But that wouldn’t be the truth.

The truth is that I’m accountable for my actions and inactions. There were a thousand forks in the road, and I probably read the map upside down more than once, but that’s my fault, too. I got here one decision at a time.

Some of those decisions were informed, deliberate, and good. Some of them laddered up to beautiful moments, to memories I am grateful for, to versions of myself I still recognize.

But those aren’t the ones I remember first.

The decisions that stand out are the ones that caused pain — to myself, to others, or both. Some consequences arrived immediately, sharp and undeniable. Others took their time. They gathered somewhere out of sight, gaining weight and force until, eventually, they came for me.

Last year, the consequences of choices I had made over many years came crashing down.

It felt like standing knee-deep in the surf when one wave catches you off guard and knocks you flat. Before you can find your footing, another one hits. Then another. You know the shore is close. You know you were standing just a moment ago. But suddenly, you cannot tell which way is up.

By the end of the year, I was a salty, sandy, shivering mess.

At first, it was only a current around my ankles. A new awareness. Something unseen and powerful tugging at me from beneath the surface. Curious, maybe even foolishly hopeful, I took a few steps forward. I wanted to understand what I was feeling. I wanted to know whether the pull meant something.

Then I realized it was carrying me into deeper water.

About the time I understood what was happening, a wave took me by surprise and hit me dead center.

It is one thing to know something intuitively. It is another to have it confirmed later, especially when the confirmation offers no comfort, no decision, no change. Just information. Just the hard little pebble of being right.

I think about a friend of mine last July, the two of us sitting outside in the heat, sipping beers on a rooftop and surveying the wreckage of our lives with the kind of honesty that only seems to arrive when you are tired enough to stop pretending.

They said the demise of their relationship was not one specific moment. It was “death by a thousand cuts.”

I didn’t need clarification.

I felt the phrase reverberate in my bones. I nodded, sighed, and took a swallow of my beer. One sentence, and something in me shifted.

Then the next wave came. And then the next. Then another.

For weeks, I was underwater. I flailed in every direction, praying my hands would find something solid, something that could help me get my bearings. Sometimes I would break the surface just long enough to draw breath before being pulled under again.

By the time I made it back to shore, I was exhausted.

I was alone.

I didn’t even have the energy to move, let alone function. I was still trying to clear the water from my nose and eyes. Still trying to convince my brain and body that the danger had passed. Still learning how to breathe without bracing for the next wave.

But I chose to walk into the water.

No one forced me.

I made a choice. And then another. And another. I cannot be “salty” about my current state when I’m the one who put myself here.

Or can I?

Because accountability and grief are not opposites.

I can own the choices that brought me here and still mourn what they cost me. I can admit that I walked toward the water and still feel angry that I nearly drowned. I can recognize my responsibility without pretending the pain was deserved, useful, or easy to survive.

Maybe that’s the part I’m still learning.

Maybe that’s also why “Hurricane” keeps showing up when I hit shuffle on Spotify — not because I’m blameless in the storm, but because I know what it feels like to look around at the damage and wonder how much of it came from outside me, and how much of it I carried in myself.

I’ve been the current.

I’ve been the wave.

I’ve been the person standing in the surf, pretending I couldn't feel the pull.

And now I’m here, on the floor, surrounded by clothes and consequences, trying to decide what comes with me and what finally gets left behind.

*I promise the next post will be a little less "emo"...