The Child I Carried Into the Tide

"I am made of all the things I did not say."
— Nayyirah Waheed

My greatest fear has always been drowning. Not just the literal kind—though the thought of water closing over my head sends my heart racing—but the emotional surrender, the waves that pull you under when you least expect it. Today was one of those days. The tide came fast, heavy with memories I thought I’d buried, and I felt the familiar churn of chaos beneath my ribs. I’ve lived most of my life in extremes—complete peace or complete chaos, with little in between. For years, I thought I’d found a middle ground, a quiet gray, but I see now it was just internal chaos wearing a mask. Outwardly, everything was in order: a tidy life, a steady smile. No one knew I was breaking. But the lie you tell yourself eventually becomes too heavy to carry, and the waves don’t ask permission before they rise.

I used to avoid the water altogether. I’d stay on land, inside, where the world couldn’t touch me—where I didn’t have to feel the salt sting of too much. But avoidance is its own kind of drowning, a slow suffocation under the weight of all the things I didn’t say. I’ve learned, over time, that I trust no one to save me but myself. So I taught myself to swim, to face the tide when it comes. And lately, the tide has been carrying something new: pieces of my past, fragments of the child I used to be, washing up on the shore of my present.

I’ve been searching for her these past several months, trying to remember what it felt like to be wide-eyed and unafraid. My body is changing now—more fragile, etched with the ache of time. My eyes tell stories I didn’t choose to share, their creases humming an old song of years I can’t take back. But she’s still there, that child, tucked beneath the surface. She still gets giddy over cereal boxes with bright colors, still talks to squirrels in the park and imagines their reply, still believes in a world that’s softer, safer than the one I’ve come to know. I see her in the way I linger over glitter nail polish at the drugstore, in the way I smile at the first crisp day of autumn, in the stuffed animals I keep on my shelf, lined up like an audience waiting for a story.

She’s why the waves hit harder now. There’s more to protect. I’ve become her keeper—not to erase what’s happened, but to witness her, to let her know I haven’t forgotten. I let her speak when I’m brave enough. I let her pick the movie on a quiet Friday night, something animated and bright. I let her take the walk through the park, kicking leaves with abandon. I let her cry when the world feels too sharp, when the weight of it all—too many expectations, too many losses—threatens to swallow us both. I’ve always felt things deeply, my heart a pendulum swinging between joy and ache, leaving little room for stillness.

In those moments of surrender, I feel the waves settle. Not because the ocean changes—it never does—but because I’ve stopped fighting the tide. I used to think I needed a lifeboat, someone else to pull me to the surface. I spent years searching for a harbor in others, hoping they’d hold the magic I craved, only to realize I was the one carrying it all along. The glitter, the autumn, the stories—they were mine to keep, mine to give. I was the one who made the ordinary shimmer, who turned chaos into something worth remembering.

Now, I build my life with softer edges, choosing the light, the pace, the people who feel like home. I don’t say yes unless I mean it. I don’t reach for every open door just because it’s there. I’ve learned to swim not to escape the tide, but to carry her through it—the child I was, the child I still am. She doesn’t need me to save her. She just needs me to see her, to hold space for her laughter and her tears. And in that act, I find a quiet alchemy: the unsaid things I’ve carried become a song, a melody of waves that no longer scare me. I am made of them, yes, but I am also made of her—of the child I carried into the tide, and the woman who learned to let her breathe.