Journeying On

May 2, 2025 Journal | Oregon Coast

Today, I stood at the edge of the world—where land slips quietly into sea—and for the first time in what feels like forever, I exhaled.

The weight I've carried this winter—grief wrapped in silence—has felt unrelenting. Losing Mom, losing Scott… it hollowed something in me. The days grew long and gray, and I’ve been buried beneath them, moving through life like fog over cold water. I kept going, but I wasn’t really here.

And yet, here I am now. Feet in the sand, wind in my hair, and the sound of the Pacific crashing like a slow drumbeat reminding me: you’re still alive.

There’s salt in the air, in my skin, in my soul. And somehow, it doesn’t sting—it cleanses. Like the ocean knows how to hold sorrow without drowning in it. Like it's saying, you can hurt and still move forward.

I feel the camera in my hands like a compass. I don’t need to know where I’m going, just that I’m still capable of seeing. Of feeling. Of capturing beauty in a world that hasn’t stopped breaking my heart—and still gives me reason to love it.

This trip is a kind of surrender. Ten days of just me, the lens, the page, and the open road. No expectations, no pretending. Just the truth.

I don’t know what healing is supposed to look like. But standing here, listening to the sea breathe, I remember that I don’t have to be whole to keep going.

I just have to keep journeying on.