Have you ever felt a love so strong you knew in the deepest part of your heart that everything would work out? That amongst the bombs being dropped, the borders being bombarded, the threats of a world war playing peak a boo around the corner, love would win?
Have you ever looked into someone’s eyes and rather than them looking back at you, they are see you? Your soul.
Have you ever wanted to hold someone in your arms and protect them from all of the evil in the world? To use yourself as a shield, to reflect anything that wants to hurt them? From the smallest mosquito to the biggest disease, you would take their pain from them if you could.
Have you ever loved someone so much you didn’t think it was possible? All of the inventions in the world and yet this love was more unbelievable than a heart transplant in itself? The first automobile replacing a horse. The first lightbulb lighting a city.
Have you ever felt as though maybe the love you had for people before them might not have been love at all, but rather some other version of something much smaller and quite different and that maybe this, this one, is the love that has been written about since the beginning of time?
Where words don’t fit, and nothing quite seems to capture the feeling on paper, all you are left with is a feeling. A feeling that makes you want to give. The giving that makes you forget about receiving. You pour your entire being into them in hopes that whatever holes are empty, you can fill. In hopes that what you can offer will be enough.
What they think you need given and what you actually need are completely different. They are used to nothing they do being good enough and yet just them existing, is enough for you.
When you don’t need or want anything from them other than to hear their laugh, to watch them smile, to feel the happiness you add to their life shine through their eyes. When the smallest message, tiniest flower, longest hug, and softest kiss, hold more value than anything anyone has ever gifted to you before. You don’t love them for what they can give to you, but rather for who they are.
When you are used to proving yourself and feeling as though you need to explain why you are the why you are, and why you think the way you think, it’s hard to believe someone can come along and silence your worry. “Shhhh you don’t need to tell me, just be you, it is okay.”
You might have a hard time believing that they actually like you for you, or even like you at all. It is hard to believe that there is not a hidden argument waiting around the corner. You think that at any moment this person could stop liking you, and it is hard to believe that instead, they actually like you more with each day that passes.
Although your mind wants peace, your nervous system remembers the opposite. It remembers all of the times before that you had to fight, that you had to explain yourself, that you had to keep swimming or you would drown. But now you’re able to pause and float. To look around and enjoy the view. To take a breath and give your heart a rest. Although this is peace, it is hard for your mind to accept it when your nervous system doesn’t think you deserve it.
You have been told many times before that to stop swimming and to just float is wrong. That it will put you behind. That it’s a waste of time. That if you pause and float, the people swimming beside you will pass you by. Those who can’t swim need you to keep swimming because if you don’t, they will drown. They will no longer have someone pulling them. But it is not your job to teach them to swim, nor to pull them. It is theirs.
In this ocean of life, you need someone who knows how to swim. Someone who can pull you should you get tired, but not someone who does the swimming for you.
In this ocean of life, you need someone who throws to you a buoy when you feel like you’re falling behind. Someone who is a strong enough swimmer that they can float while you catch up. Someone who appreciates the floating. Someone who loves to swim, but would rather swim beside you or not swim at all.
It is hard enough in this ocean of life to keep up with the waves. And should you meet someone who doesn’t know how to swim, they’ll spend forever trying to bring you to shore. But there is a world beyond the horizon, where the sun rises and sets, waiting for you to discover it.
The ocean knows no difference between a fish, a human, a shark, turtle, a swimmer or a rock. The ocean just continues to move, it continues to wave, and it is up to you whether it is hello or goodbye.
There is nothing wrong with the shoreline. It is filled with the sand from the deepest depths of the sea, and palm trees whose roots extend into the very earth that provides for us all. It is where the rest of the people who make life worth living are, and some animals are perfectly placed there for those who are on land to witness.
Sharks cannot breathe should they stay on land and humans cannot breathe should they stay in water. But the difference between a shark and a human is that humans have the ability to balance two ways of life should we wish to. We can swim out to the horizon and we can walk up to the shore. To balance, is the key to life. To enjoy the shore when you’re walking and to enjoy the water as you swim. To be fully present wherever it is that you are, that is life.
The key is not to get too comfortable on land so that you forget to swim, but do not avoid returning to shore neither. I guess my point is, learn to swim. Because you can always swim back to shore. But if you never learn to swim, you’ll never be able to leave the shore to begin with. And if you never leave the shore, you might not ever learn what it feels like to float.