The roar of the waves hangs in the air, a beautiful symphony. It asks for nothing and in turn I can surrender myself. Each step grounds me, my breath catching as the cold engulfs me. Then comes the letting go as I embrace the beautiful release that follows.
I’m not anyone other than myself here; the roar in my head and in my body ebb away, all labels and identities left on the shore.
The sea is what drew us home, and it’s what kept us in the northwest. The Atlantic Ocean has always held me. In August 2023 it finally whispered “this time” as I clutched the most beautiful secret close to my heart - a positive test that morning. A year later it was that same beach where we introduced our then 3-month-old baby to the sand and the sea.
I don’t have to make sense of myself in nature, I just am. Everything we are we owe to the natural world around us.
Embracing chaos
For most of my life, I’ve clung to a need for control; following an invisible thread that keeps me safe - small rituals that hold me in place. I wake at the same hour every day, eat the same breakfast, tidy every corner of my house as if creating order can still the chaos in my mind and body.
Yet the only place I can truly breathe is outside. The chaos is something beautiful there, something to be embraced. Our garden is the opposite of the inside of our house - it’s wild, maybe a bit like me! Our lawn is full of wildflowers and I could sit out there all day and let the cacophony of bee and bird song wash over me while the trees dance above. Whatever pain MS has thrown my way over the years I feel I am so much more than this disease when I’m outside.
I can’t control my MS and I find that hard, but lately I’ve come to realise I’ve spent most my life trying to control parts of myself. The parts that others saw as “too much” - the parts I saw as “not enough”.
Nature has always brought me so much peace. As a child, with my dog Spot in tow, the natural world always calmed me. From hiding out with my books and paints among the rushes to blackberry picking and summers spent swimming in the beautiful Lough Arrow - there is so much joy in what is simple.
Yet nature is also unapologetically wild and unpredictable and it’s all the more beautiful for this. In accepting nature as it is, in whatever way it shows up, I’m learning to accept myself too. I’m learning that just as the seasons ebb and flow and change, so too does my body. Nothing is permanent and everything has a season. For the first time in my life I’m embracing this part of myself, this wildness at heart. Maybe that’s why nature, in all its beautiful chaos, has always brought me so much peace - it feels like home.
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