The Tide That Keeps Nothing

It is 3:14 am. The house is holding its breath, and I am watching the way shadows stretch across the floor, mimicking the way we try to hold onto things that were never meant to stay. We spend our lives carving paths into the sand, convinced that if we press hard enough, the earth will remember us. We leave our marks, our names, our small, frantic histories, and we wait for the world to acknowledge the weight of our passing. But the water always comes back. It does not hate the path; it simply does not care that it was there. There is a terrifying comfort in that erasure. To be washed clean, to have the evidence of our wandering pulled back into the dark, indifferent deep. We are all just temporary shapes in the wet sand, waiting for the tide to decide we have been here long enough. Does it hurt to know that by morning, the ground will be smooth again, as if we never walked at all?

Everton Marcelino has captured this quiet surrender in his image titled Way of Light. It reminds me that some paths are only meant to be walked until the water rises. Does the sight of the receding tide make you feel lighter, or are you still trying to leave a mark?