Grief is like an Ocean Monday, January 13, 2020 12:59 PM Grief, like the ocean, is so vast and all-consuming. It is also riddled with conflicting under currents and waves. There are different depths and there are different temperatures that seemingly exist just so that we might not ever have the ability to get a handle on it. No matter what it is that we are told, whether we know it or not, it simply just does not even matter because grief is not always obvious. Swimming between all of the flags is really just a formality, because once that you are in the water it is so easy to get pulled every which way with -out even realizing it, until you suddenly sub -merged beneath of the waters' surface while you are trying your hardest to swim against the strong current; Just to simply be able to get yourself back onto solid ground. However, here is the thing - Sold ground does not exist anymore, no not really. You can get back up there, sure; Whether it is fighting against the violence or other negativity that may or may not be swirling around you or simply just going with the flow until you are able to drift around it eventually. Once that you are back onto and the flags are in the distance , a "mere" suggestion of safety now. You can still see the ocean, you can smell it and you can also taste it. You even still know that no matter where it is that you might go, who you meet, what you do; You will always be surrounded by it completely, the one constant that is on this earth. Personally, that is scary to me; The thought of such constant instability. You can sit on the shore and simply just drown in all of the tears and all of the heart-cracking sorrow. You can sit on the shore and simply just bathe in all of the anger and all of the skin-scalding frustration. You can even scream to be heard above the waves breaking; Slow, rough, steady and constant - Never Ending. You can drown in the high-pitched silence of your own head. You can watch the storm clouds form, all purple and grey, as they loom in the distance, while promising rain and that may or may not make you feel something else for a tiny slice of a second. However, you will still be able to see the ocean. You can still see the flags whipping in the never-ending gusts of such strong winds. The same wind that throws the ocean around in front of you, while it also splatters your face with flecks of salt water so that you cannot distinguish between the taste of the oceans' water and your very own tears. We are taught to believe that grief comes in tidal-waves, tsunamis; Obvious, destructive forces that leave nothing but havoc and hurt within their wake and it does, it really fucking does doesn't it? At some point in time or another, we will all experience grief so grand, so earth-shattering, that any person who so much as even glances in our direction will be able to see it. They will see you violently thrashing around in the under-current, as you are also trying so hard to keep yourself above the water and trying just as hard to get yourself back to shore. Some people will help you. Some people will throw out ropes and they will out on boats in an attempt to pull you in. Whether or not you want it, you will end up getting it right there onto the shoreline where you washed up on. However, grief also comes in ripples and grief also comes in trickles. The kind of grief that causes buckets of water and it also causes a large amount of confusion within us; An over-looked force that erodes slowly, overtime; While leaving permanent grooves and just as much damage as a tidal-wave, ripping right through us. At some point throughout each and every one of our lives, we will all experience the suffocating silence that comes with being trapped under the weight of grief that does not look like what we have been told to expect. Sometimes, that can even be the loneliest shoreline in the entire universe. Crystal Kay Floyd January 2020