Slumped in one of the low beach chairs we borrowed from our Airbnb, I burrow my feet into the sand and stare out at the waves. My body feels heavy, coated with exhaustion. I vacillate between torpor and restless movement, but even when I still, I am not resting. My mind turns my feelings over, examining them like the shells I’ve collected as I pace the shoreline.
What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I shake the leaden weight in my chest? I carried it here all the way from frigid Illinois, expecting—hoping—to leave it behind on the airplane like a forgotten water bottle, but I’ve still felt numb all week. Discontent clings to my skin, an itchy sweater I can’t seem to shed.
A decade ago, in my twenties, I lived in depression, the kind with teeth, tearing myself apart from the inside out. As frustrated as I am with my current inability to pull myself up by my bootstraps, the work I’ve done to change my internal soundtrack from self-loathing to self-love fills me with gratitude. That work was worth it. Life is worth it.
Still, this happens from time to time, these moments when I lose my zest, and my creativity dulls. Most often, my depression follows the seasons, as though my soul is Demeter, hibernating until Persephone returns from the underworld. Eventually, I came to expect this “wintering”—not in a fatalistic way, but in a moment of radical acceptance. I prepare, with hope, like a squirrel stashing acorns for winter. My husband and I reached an understanding: we will live in the midwest, near our family and friends, but every year we can afford it, we will go somewhere warm in the winter. I cling to that hope, to the lure of the ocean, to its magic I’m sure can heal me.
“Wherever you go, there you are,” I mutter under my breath, heaving myself out of the chair and slouching down to let the water wash the sand off my ankles. Out of habit, my eyes scan the ground for good shells, something to hold while I think. I still haven’t found an intact moon snail shell on this trip, and I search for the smooth swirl colored like over-creamed coffee or the blue-beige of breastmilk. Nothing.
I sigh, my eyes unconsciously drawn to the rainbow-hued coquinas each wave uncovers, watching as the tiny bivalves flip themselves up and burrow back in again. Behind me, I hear my children playing on the sand, and my eyes fill. I feel a million miles away from them, like I’m watching them grow up through privacy glass. Even with my body here, my mind rarely is. I dwell in the future, or mull over the past; living in the present does not come naturally to me.
I wrap my arms around myself, my hair whipping around my face. Clouds have moved over the sun, the wind urging the waves to roll higher. I stare at the white crests, a kind of hunger growing in my belly, my heartbeat quickening.
Little fingers touch my elbow, and I look down. Fierce eyes the color of seaweed meet my own—my middle child, who feels the world as intensely as I do. Her freckles stand out strong on her nose, coaxed from their winter pallor by the Florida sun. She loves it here, too. The first time we brought her to the beach, she danced in the water like a sea witch, her tiny arms waving as she drew the tide in and sent it hurtling back to the deep.
I wrap her hand in mine, and she leans on me—her signature move, touching as much of me as she can, like she has from birth. Of my three children, she’s the one I worry about most, the one I fear will stumble on the same rocks I have.
Because as hard as I’ve worked to overcome my inherited neuroses—to be a cycle-breaker—and as hard as I try to teach my children to know their worth and treat themselves with dignity, I know I can’t protect them from their genetic heritage. In my heart of hearts, I sometimes still ache with shame that I may have passed this struggle on to another generation.
We stand vigil together, my mermaid and I, and look at the sea. Soon, my husband and our eldest daughter join us in our watch. My heart races, the longing to lose myself in the rhythm of the waves overwhelming.
“Do you want to go in with me and ride the waves?” I blurt, looking at my little girl, her hand still in mine. “I promise I won’t let the water go over your head. You can cling to me like a koala, and I’ll hold you tight.”
Big, green eyes, lit with excitement, the call of the water. She nods.
“Will you come, too?” I ask my husband. “And you?” to my eldest child, full of sunshine, wholesome and mild. So like her father.
We step into the water, our daughters clinging to our necks. I wade out to chest height, then sink until I feel the water catch me, knees gently bent, feeling the surge of the tide. Waiting for the waves.
The Gulf never gets cold, but by late January the water feels chilly, even on my winter-hardened skin. My blood pounds through me, the numbness I’ve battled all week—all month—shrinking to a pinpoint as the waves crash in, lifting us up. My daughter’s arms tighten around me, but I keep my promise. We ride the waves.
For the next twenty minutes, we whoop with joy, salt spray misting our hair, our eyes sparkling with the same light. I look at my husband, at my other daughter. They, too, are enraptured by the sea, riding the highs and lows like they were born to it.
This is how, I realize. This is how I protect them. Not by saving them from the storm, but by riding it out with them. By promising I won’t let their heads go below water. By pulling them up if they fall.
“Here comes a big one, Mommy!”
“I see it, baby! Are you ready?”
We rise.
C, playing in the water, pretending she can control the waves.
I originally wrote this piece in 2023 for publication in The Future of Us (2023), an anthology from Moms Who Write. Since then, I’ve not only begun to make friends with Midwest winter, but I’ve learned even more about trauma, attachment theory, and how our bodies encode and embody memory. I still have seasons of emotional wintering, but every year, my hope for my children grows. In the end, the underlying current of this piece remains wholeheartedly true: whatever life brings, we will ride the waves together.