Dusk has fallen; the bright streaks of the sunset are fading into themselves, leaving behind the faint glow of an already forgotten today. We stumble over the sand, clumsy on the uneven ground, holding hands in a chain, a family. We walk past the smoldering of the campfires, the light and heat of the people telling jokes and strumming on their guitars, just being people.
We all somehow let go of each other's hands at the same time, and I stand at the water's edge and take in the ocean in front of me, an unending body of water that stretches off into the horizon. The tide comes in, leaving foam at my feet, a constant constancy, nature's pendulum, and I walk down the shoreline, in awe of this force and power of the ocean, hearing the chatter of the people as mere background noise as the roar of the ocean gets me from the inside out.
Shadows dance across the sand, and lights shine down the walk, strings of lights restaurant owners hung up to illuminate the outside, or just city lights. The breeze blows my hair across my face and I breathe in the fresh, salty air.
In that breath all the beauty of this place seems to hit me. I am frozen in time, and this is exactly when their voices sound across the shore.
It's time for us to leave.
And it all hits me then, or you know, as he says, "in terms of everything."
We're always leaving behind the things we love most.
It is so bittersweet, and he is so far away from me still.
