When you’re on the beach you build sand castles. And then your parents, they buy hermit crabs, and you let them wander the world you just created. The, uh, hermit crabs, that is. Not your parents. Though, they are certainly free to wander the sand castle too. But if you’re anything like my family, the hermit crabs are the wanderers. They’re ugly little sentries that crawl back and forth in the tunnels you just dug out of the sand.

And the ocean is nearby and you get that. You understand that the waves crash on the shore, that this happens regularly, in fact. But what you don’t quite understand is that sometimes one wave can destroy everything you’ve created. Everything you’re proud of. Everything you are.

And then the wave recedes back into the ocean and the beach keeps happening like it’s normal business. The women are applying sunscreen to their men so they don’t get burnt and babies are wearing the kind of swim diapers that are stuffed under their bathing suits in a way that makes you grateful that you are, at the very least, potty trained.

But there you are.

Looking at the devastation that was your beautiful sand castle. And the hermit crabs are gone now too. And you’ve learned to fear the ocean and you’re tempted to stop building sand castles because now you know the price with which they come. You know how long they take to make and how quickly they are leveled and how none of that is fair. And you’re not even sure you can build one again; that all that you are didn’t  get poured into that life project and then irretrievably swept into the sea with your castle.

And you aren’t entirely sure where you can go to get more of yourself anyway. It’s not like they sell the stuff of you at Walmart. And besides, they don’t have a Scratch and Dent section and you’re pretty sure that’s the only place where you’d be for sale now. And when people tell you that the best of you is still here, a part of you inside thinks they’re cute when they lie.

Because you don’t feel resilient or hopeful or even very interesting anymore.

You feel leveled and the sand has gotten under your finger nails and behind your knees in such a way that you itch. But you don’t even care enough to scratch anymore; that would be admitting that you think you can feel better someday, even if it just means not itching so much anymore.

Because, again, what you feel is leveled. And the sun is too hot and the shade too far away and the beach is just full of people whose lives are in stark contrast to yours. You’re feeling that unreachable spot on your back getting burned by the relentless sun and you’re looking around for another pair of hands to help, but you realize anew that not only do you feel alone, soon you’re gonna feel alone and burned.

Great.

But then you see a shovel and the handle is broken but there is the part that scoops and it works just fine. So you pick it up and you start to dig and you don’t feel like it and the last thing you want to do is dig alone, but it’s either dig or die and God has made it clear that the latter is not an option.

So you dig but you’re not happy and you look a little crazy while you do it and no, you’re not whistling while you work because you never learned how to whistle anyway. Not even with a pop who can whistle the way that Mariah Carey can sing.

But yes, you dig.

Because what else can you do?