the paradox of chasing the shoreline while fearing the waves
— why do i search for you in the crowd just to hide from you?
There’s a feeling I can’t quite grasp. Something elusive, plaguing my mind endlessly. I find myself searching for you in the sea of faces, only retreating into the shadows the moment our paths cross.
What’s this I’m feeling? It’s unfamiliar – something I never plan to feel and feel again. It sounds strange, but it’s like a magnetic force I can’t quite explain. Even if I try to pull myself away, there’s like an invisible string that keeps drawing me closer to you.
And I’m terrified of what this may mean to me.
When I think about you, I feel warmth and comfort. But it also reminds me to protect myself from whatever may happen.
To be seen and understood – it’s what we all want, isn’t it? It’s something we all crave from someone who cherishes us, like the gentle tide caressing the shore, leaving behind a quiet yet lasting presence.
Yet the fear lingers, a whisper warning me: even the tide can pull you underwater if you’re not careful. So I tread through carefully, hoping that I can hold onto this unsettling feeling without drowning in its depths.
But how long can I continue to walk on thin ice between longing and fear? Each time I catch a glimpse of you, my heart betrays me.
There’s this familiar pattern I’ve come to recognize.
Thump thump thump- my heart skips a beat or two; a silent war in my head: do I want to be seen by you, or do I want to disappear in thin air?
Maybe it’s not the idea of you that I’m afraid of; but the countless possibilities of the version I imagine of myself when I’m with you.
A version of me that feels raw, vulnerable, and exposed. Something I’d rather keep, yet your very existence makes it impossible to do so.
So I’ll keep searching for courage. Not just for you, but also for the courage to stop hiding from the tides of what could be.
Perhaps my perception has been wrong all along. The tides do not only sweep us away, but it can carry us along, too. It can sweep us from our feet – to unimaginable places. Somewhere new, somewhere unexpected.
Maybe it can take me to the version of myself I’ve been too afraid to embrace – someone who no longer has the fear to let the waves take her wherever she’s meant to be.
Then maybe someday, when I finally release that fear, I’ll no longer hide. I’ll stand by you, ready to face the tides of the unknown.
Not as someone who hides but as someone who’s learned to rise with the waves of hope.
