Day 16: The Morning I Finally Heard the Waves

I walked the same beach every single day for five years. I had my morning routine down perfectly: a cigarette in one hand, a phone in the other, a cup of coffee somewhere in the middle, and my eyes fixed on the sand. I was always planning or remembering or worrying, never actually there. Then one week after I learned to lie down, keep my eyes open, and watch my thoughts like waves, something shifted. I was walking that same beach with my eyes open, and I heard something I had never heard before in all those years. It was the sound of the waves. I stopped walking, looked up, and watched the sun melt into the sea. And I cried. I had been there every day. I had never really been present. That is what watching your thoughts does — it wakes you up to the life that has always been here.