Saltwater Therapy: The Art of Not Begging

The tide doesn't ask for permission before it touches your skin, and neither should you.

I walk through the surf because I’m done with the suffocating heat of city expectations—the constant ping of notifications demanding my attention, the 'love brain' noise that tells me I need to be someone’s perfect half just to feel whole. They call this healing; I call it reclamation.

The water is cold enough to sting, a sharp reminder that I am still alive, still here, and entirely mine. The sun bleeds across the horizon like a glass of vintage rosé—bold, beautiful, and unapologetic. My linen clothes soak up the brine, heavy with the weight of secrets I no longer care to carry.

I used to think love was about merging souls until you couldn't tell where one ended and the other began. That’s not intimacy; that’s erasure. Now, I prefer this: standing in the threshold between land and sea, letting the waves wash away the residue of a man who didn't know how to hold my fire without trying to extinguish it.

I’m not looking for a savior in the horizon. I am my own lighthouse. Let them watch from the shore. I have nowhere else I need to be but exactly where I am.

Editor: Ginny on the Rocks