And Suddenly, All The Seas Feel Smaller Now

There was a time when the sea felt endless to me, an expanse so vast that I believed I could choose any direction, any current, any fish that caught my eye. The horizon seemed infinite, and with it came the comforting illusion that possibilities, too, were without limit. Every fish felt within reach, each one a symbol of choices waiting to be made. I moved through life with the quiet confidence that abundance would always be there.

But as I grew older, the waters began to change. Or perhaps it was I who changed. Experience has a way of narrowing things, not intentionally, but inevitably. Each encounter, each disappointment, each lesson learned becomes a filter, sifting what once felt infinite into something more defined, more selective. The fishes that once represented countless options now seem fewer, shaped by the weight of memory and the clarity of hindsight.

And so now, when I look at the sea, it no longer feels boundless. It feels smaller, quieter, almost familiar. Not because it has lost its beauty, but because I now understand its depths and my own. The vast ocean of possibilities has become a curated tide, offering not every fish I once imagined, but only those that truly align with the person I have become.

Perhaps that is the price of growing up: realizing that the world does not shrink, but our understanding refines. And in that refinement, we come to see not the loss of fish to choose from, but the growing clarity of which ones were ever meant to be ours.