Becoming Sea Glass

I used to think being broken meant I had failed. That my sharp edges were proof of how unlovable I was. But then one day, while walking the beach, I picked up a piece of sea glass and saw myself in it.

The tide had just started to go out when I saw it: a glimmer of color. Half buried beneath the wet sand. The sky was overcast, the soft gray that makes everything feel muted and honest. My hair stuck to my cheeks from the ocean mist, and the wind carried that familiar salt; sharp, clean, and ancient.

I bent down and brushed away the sand until it revealed itself completely. A small, smooth piece of green sea glass. I rolled it between my fingers; its edges cool and rounded. It had been broken once, jagged and dangerous, and yet here it was. Softened by the sea, transformed by time.

I thought about how many times it must have been tossed and tumbled in the waves before it became something gentle. I thought about all the storms that had shaped it, and how maybe, in their chaos, they were never trying to destroy it at all...they were sculpting it.

The ocean didn't ask it to be perfect. It asked it to endure.

That's when I realized, I wasn't broken. I was becoming! Every sharp edge, life had given me was being softened into something more whole, more human, and more divine.

And maybe that's what healing really is: not erasing what hurt you. But, letting the waves carry away the parts that no longer fit, until only the truth remains.

Maybe we're all sea glass in our own way. Scattered pieces, waiting for the tide to remind us we are still beautiful, even when we have been shattered.