Where Else Would I Go?

I was seventeen and angry.

It was a few days before Christmas, and my parents and I started fighting in the middle of the night. I don't even remember what it was all about, but I was so blinded by fury and rage that I walked out of the house in a light jacket even though it was 25 degrees out and drove away. It was midnight.

There were tears in my eyes. I could barely see the road, even with my high beams on and the streetlamps to guide me. I was in no shape for driving, but I sure as hell wasn't going to turn around and go back home; in fact, I didn't have much of a destination in mind, so I let the road lead me where my heart wanted me to be.

And that's how the interstate, one cold Christmastime, led me to the Bradley Beach, New Jersey. It's a small shore town, fairly hard-hit by Hurricane Sandy. I had driven for a half-hour in the middle of the night, watching the highway disappear beneath my tires through my tears as I wandered in search of freedom, and there I found it, in the form of the sea as I parked the car at the side of the road and stepped out into the night.

I walked to the railing that still stood by the sand and gazed out at the waves crashing on the shoreline. Why was I even there, so far away from home? It was almost one in the morning, and I was standing at what then felt like the edge of eternity, alone. Anyone could come up and kidnap a teenage girl who was by herself in the middle of the night, in a deserted town, but somehow, I wasn't afraid.

I was there for one reason: I couldn't stay home any longer or I would go absolutely insane. If I stayed, I knew that things would only get worse. Instead of settling things with my parents and growing up, I took the path of the coward and I ran to the only place I ever wanted to be, even in the cold: the sea.

I could not go onto the sand; it was roped off with caution-tape from the hurricane, still, so instead I sat on the railing and stared into the distance. The ocean was swaying for miles and miles, its waves crashing gently into the sand as I watched in silence. It was like I was watching a sacred rite of nature. All I, a mortal versus the unending water, could do was sit and stare.

I realized, then, that if I were a pagan, the sea would be my goddess. I ran to the beach that terrible night because the sea is my solace. Where am I to go, where am I to belong, without her? When I cried, she comforted me with her gentle, settling tides to lull my tears away. My sister, my mother, and a part of my soul is the sea.

As I sat atop the railing, swinging my legs back and forth and shivering in the cold December night, the water spoke to me. The water spoke to me, and in that very moment. It whispered my name in its solemn waves. It told me what I must do.

I mustn't stay there, with the water's quiet comfort. I mustn't stay there, with my hopeful thoughts of what life could be if only I could escape my house one day. I mustn't stay there, in my holy vigil watching over the sea that I knew would never come to harm. The sea spoke to me and told me that I must go home.

I swung my legs back over the railing and strode across the empty road back to my car. I turned the key in the ignition and pulled away, glancing one last time at the sea, with the stars in the clear night sky watching me from over my head. I turned my head and looked back to the road, forcing myself not to look back.

And so I went. Be it to happiness or to Hell, I drove the winding road back home, leaving my mother at the shore, with the achingly beautiful promise that there would always be another day, another week, another year, and that she would always be there to wash away my tears with her waters of hope.