The not-so-happy post.

I apologize ahead of time for my morbid tone today, on a Friday no doubt. However, I want/need to get my thoughts out of my head.

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I have always been drawn to the sea, growing up in a coastal Maine town allowed me that luxury. I consider myself to have seawater for blood. If I had wanted to escape the angst that was high school, I would drive to the point and sit on the rocks for hours watching the waves as they crashed, pondering my ever-so-dramatic social life. I found solace on those rocks, with each wave I felt more strength to deal with the pubescent assholes I was surrounded by. The ocean not only provided inspiration, it scared the crap out of me. Something with that much power should never be trusted; it's tempermental, bitchy, and full of shit. Maybe that's why I was so drawn to it, we were so similar. When I went to school in the mountains of North Carolina, I always felt like a part of me was missing. Although the mountains are just as powerful, I would watch for hours and they won't move. (Go figure.) I missed the ocean more than I cared to admit to myself. The mountains were a welcomed temporary replacement, but they would never take up permanent residency, and neither would I.

I read this morning in the NYTimes of the village Calang, Indonesia, that before December 26 comprised of 7,000 residents. The town was not just destroyed by the tsunami, it vanished and was replaced by concrete slabs. So far, they've only found 323 bodies with no signs of the over-5,000 missing. The sea came and took them, kidnapped them blindly from their home and destroyed what was left of it, killing them with it's monstrous hands in the form of a wave.

I feel helpless. We are so far removed from this disaster that we can only view the images, and mourn with a few moments out of our day. It doesn't leave our thoughts; we can donate our money, but it still doesn't seem like enough. I want to be there to help clean-up, rebuild; supply some kind of hope for the survivors, if there can even be some. I've been overcome with guilt for having my life left physically untouched from this disaster. Although the ocean constantly takes lives single-handedly, it hasn't done so to this capacity with billions to witness. Now it's scaring me on an entirely different level. The distrust I had for it before has been proven truthful and I'm having a difficult time finding the optimism I usually have.