In the uncertain ebb and flow of time and emotions much of one's life history is etched in the senses.

I had been walking in silence for so long,I had almost forgotten what my own voice sounded like.My knees were tired;my toes were beginning to ache.

No one can survive childhood without being wounded. Everyone remembers at least one time when their parents rejected them, pushed them away, even though they may have still been in the womb, blind, and unable to speak. That's why, as adults, we all look for someone to become our parents again, and for someone to look after us in times of need. And we search for a person to live with who can provide the companionship we so desperately want.

Was that what it means to be an adult, to live with ugly ambiguities?

I should have told her at the time. I could have taken a deep breath, looked away, and forced myself to say it.

It’s a marvelous thing, the ocean. For some reason when two people sit together looking out at it, they stop caring whether they talk or stay silent. You never get tired of watching it. And no matter how rough the waves get, you’re never bothered by the noise the water makes by the commotion of the surface - it never seems too loud, or too wild.

Each one of us continues to carry the heart of each self we've ever been, at every stage along the way, and a chaos of everything good and rotten. And we have to carry this weight all alone, through each day that we live. We try to be as nice as we can to the people we love, but we alone support the weight of ourselves.