I woke up this morning at our VRBO on the Florida Atlantic Coast to a gray sky and a gray ocean. She’s a quiet sea today, her waves moving in long, straight lines, breaking in a single echo across the beach. I don’t know this gray water well. I’m far more accustomed to the blues, aquas, and greens of the Caribbean.
One thing that struck me was how far back the tide pulls back the sea as it retreats and how quickly it does so. I stepped away from my computer for a cup of coffee, and when I returned, the distance from where the waves had been breaking was remarkable. I assume its return to the high tide mark will be just as determined.
All of this feels fascinating to a Midwesterner turned traveler. Sitting here now, coffee beside Michael, I searched for a metaphor to capture the moment. There are plenty, how time moves quickly, how life rolls away faster than we expect.
That truth felt heavy to me a year ago as we stood on the edge of retirement. I wrestled with the speed of my six decades, with the things left undone, the choices I might change, and the reality that fewer years now lie ahead than behind.
But this January morning, looking out over the quiet gray sea and the wide, open beach, I’m choosing a different lens. Life doesn’t always need to be bright, loud, or colorful to be meaningful. In the calm and quiet, with space to reflect, there is another way to see what’s before us.
The frantic pace of life when alarms and calendars ruled our days is behind us. Even in these first months, the easing of “must do” obligations has brought more time, not less. In letting go of life as it once was, I haven’t lost anything. I’ve gained what I was always searching for, the time to do, time to visit, time to sit and drink morning coffee with Michael.
Not less life. Maybe not more life. But a different way of living it. Different in the way the subdued Atlantic contrasts with the brilliance of the Caribbean.
As time pulls back and memories surface, it’s okay to look at them while they’re exposed. To smile, to consider, to hold some close and release others. And just as the tide returns, covering the sand again, so too can those memories rest as new experiences take their place.
Life moves fast. It always has. But this quieter pace does not feel like an ending. It feels like a beginning, seeing the world with Michael, time with our grandchildren, reconnecting with old friends, and tending the relationships that matter now.
As the tide moves with purpose, receeding then returning, I’m reminded that seasons are not wasted. What is revealed has meaning, and what is covered again is not lost. There is a quiet trust in knowing that the same God who set the oceans in motion is present here too, in this slower pace, in this unfolding chapter. I don’t need to rush what comes next. I only need to be faithful with the time I’ve been given.
The fog is lifting. The ocean is changing color. Another day is unfolding.
And today, by the sea, it’s time to live.
Until Next Time,
Catherine