"The only constant in life is change."
That's what you said to me, like a truth that would soften the sharp edges of loss. I nodded, but something inside me cracked open and never healed right.
I keep thinking about California.
The beach where everything felt suspended for a few seconds, sunlight ricocheting off the water, the air tasting like salt and rust, the seaweed curling around my ankles like the ocean didn’t want to let me go.
I remember the gulls screaming overhead, the endless hum of traffic behind me, the horizon trembling in the heat.
Everything shimmered, half-there, half-ready to vanish.
Even the sky looked temporary. I sat there and thought about your words.
How the beach never stays the same, how every wave is born and buried in the same second. The sand caves in under its own weight, the tide carves new stories into it every morning. Some nights the waves are calm enough to trick me into believing I can keep something, but then the water always reaches a little farther, takes a little more.
Change is supposed to be natural, but nothing about it feels gentle. It steals quietly. People disappear mid-laugh. Time takes faces I swore I’d never forget.
Every photo I’ve ever loved feels like a lie, a record of something that doesn’t exist anymore. I’ve moved houses, cities, bodies, but the ache comes with me like a shadow I forgot to detach.
I cry when I think of how small the world becomes when someone I love is gone. The air folds in. The room gets tighter. I can’t breathe without feeling the echo of what was. I imagine you there on the shoreline, your feet pressed into the wet sand, saying it again, that constant line,
And I wonder if the ocean believes you.
I’ve always clung to people like the tide clings to the shore, knowing it’s temporary but pretending it’s eternal.
I held on to moments so tightly, they crumbled in my hands.
I thought if I refused to move, maybe time would hesitate too.
The world doesn’t stop for mourning, it just keeps swallowing itself.
There’s a version of life I dream about, a neighborhood tucked along the coast, where everyone I’ve ever loved still lives within walking distance.
You’d be there, barefoot, mug in hand, telling me it’s okay to let go because the tide always returns.
I’d sit beside you, watching the horizon blur, the sea foam dying in the sand, the gulls circling what’s already gone.
We’d talk about nothing and everything, how the ocean never keeps its promises but somehow never stops trying.
Change feels cruel, but maybe it’s the only thing that proves we’re alive.
Maybe that’s what you meant.
Still, I wish I could stay right there, in that California sun,
the salt drying on my skin, time stretched thin and endless.
Everything changing, and I'm pretending I don’t see it.
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