Danielle

I’ve realized that life can feel a lot like the ocean. It comes in waves.

One day you’re floating on top of the water in your purple inflatable inner tube. The sun is warm. The water is calm. Everything feels light.

Then, without warning, the rip tide pulls you under.

You’re no longer floating. You’re trying to remember which way is up. Your chest tightens. Your thoughts race. You’re just trying to find the surface.

When I get caught in those rip tides, I question everything; my worth, my purpose, my choices. I replay conversations and search for the exact moment everything went wrong, as if finding the answer would pull me back to shore.

I question why would something bad happen to me?

But when I’m floating peacefully, I never question whether I deserve it. I simply accept it.

So why do I only question what I deserve when life gets hard?

Who taught me that suffering has to make sense?

Who decided that good people get good lives and bad people get bad ones?

I think I’m a good person. I try to be kind. I try to help. I try to leave places better than I found them.

But good things don’t happen only to good people. Bad things don’t happen only to bad people.

And maybe “good” and “bad” are just labels we created to make an unpredictable world feel easier to understand.

Maybe the waves were never a punishment.

Maybe they’re just what the ocean does.