The Ocean Doesn't Chase Waves

I spend a lot of time watching the ocean.

Not just from the beach, but through a camera lens. Early mornings at Steamer Lane. Fog lifting off the water. Surfers sitting patiently beyond the break, waiting for the right wave. Hours spent watching something that never stays the same for more than a moment.

The ocean has become one of my greatest teachers, though it rarely says anything directly.

One lesson keeps returning to me lately. The ocean doesn't chase waves.

It doesn't cling to the perfect set when it passes. It doesn't panic when the water goes flat. It doesn't exhaust itself trying to hold on to what was never meant to stay.

It simply receives what arrives and lets the rest return to sea.

Somewhere along the way, I've learned that love works much the same way.

For most of my life, I confused potential with connection. I believed that if there was chemistry, enough attraction, enough possibility, then maybe I could bridge the distance between what was happening and what I hoped would happen.

I think a lot of us do this. We become attached to who someone could be. We fall in love with the version of the relationship that exists in our imagination. We tell ourselves stories about timing. About circumstances. About mixed signals that surely mean something deeper. And before we know it, we're no longer experiencing the relationship that's actually in front of us. We're dating its potential.

The ocean doesn't do that. A wave is either there or it isn't.

It rises.

It breaks.

It passes.

The ocean doesn't spend the rest of the afternoon wondering if that wave might come back as something different.

Dating in my forties has taught me something I wish I had understood much earlier. The right people don't require convincing. They don't need to be chased, interpreted, analyzed, or managed. They don't leave you constantly wondering where you stand.

When someone genuinely wants to be in your life, there is a steadiness to it. Not perfection. Not grand gestures. Just consistency.

A returned text.

A kept promise.

A phone call when they said they'd call.

Effort that doesn't have to be extracted like a rare mineral.

I've spent enough years being fascinated by possibility.

These days, I'm far more interested in presence.

Show me who you are, not who you might become.

Show me what exists, not what could exist someday.

The older I get, the less interested I am in chasing anything that wants to leave.

If it wants to go, let it go.

If it wants to stay, it will.

The ocean taught me that too. Every wave eventually returns to the water it came from.

Nothing is forced.

Nothing is held captive.

Nothing is chased across the horizon.

And yet the ocean is never empty.

New waves keep arriving.

New tides keep turning.

New possibilities keep finding their way to shore.

Maybe that's the real lesson.

Trust what comes.

Release what goes.

Stop mistaking pursuit for connection.

The ocean never begs a wave to stay.

It rises, receives what arrives, and lets the rest return to sea.