Set Sail

I am conflicted
With the reality that all of this is temporary
The rising and setting of the sun is a routine
but lately it’s been feeling like a countdown
and we are all waiting for the fireworks, for the hats in the air
for the flashes of cameras hastily trying to contain time
All waiting for the end

How nostalgic it is
to say things like “My last first day of school”
We are always beginning things and ending things, never knowing when they will happen
But occasionally you’ll know when you’ve begun the end
It halts me sometimes, and I have to take a breath
I realize in my head that the sands of time are slipping between my fingertips and there are things that I no longer hold the same way I used to
things I no longer see the way I used to
things that no longer feel the same
It saddens me sometimes
I ask myself how I could ever cope when present becomes past
and I walk a different shore, holding different sands
Where the ocean sways in a different way
How could I ever cope when the scenery’s changed?

But I realize too how beautifully contingent everything is
that everything is unnecessary in this life
and how the smallest change in step, the slightest shift in thought
how the meeting of eyes, and hands, and hearts
how the tiniest thing could have made everything different
But this is what we have
We sailed a ship and docked on these shores
and we have become different people
We almost never want to leave
But you can only walk this island so much before your feet shape the ground you walk on
and you’ve left all the marks you could leave behind
till all you have learned and become
needs to set sail again

So yes the times are changing
and seasons are passing by like sunrise and sunset
the days feel like a countdown
but despite how much I cling tightly to the sands of time
I know a time will come when I will have to leave and set sail
carrying nothing but the memories and an eagerness to look for new ones
And always remembering that the fruitfulness of journey, lies in the promise of returning
so that when I no longer have the strength to thread shaky waters, and when my feet long to feel the sands of home
I will come back
and dock my ship here once again