Sometimes my emotions consume me much like a tsunami devastates a sand castle.

My brain is lost at sea.

And words build up inside me like a dam until they end up flooding out, engulfing whoever may be too close.

The wrong words.

I’m drowning in them as I watch them suck the air out of whoever they touch. Yet instead of inflating my lifeboat and going to save them, I sink deeper and deeper, clutching my deflated lifeboat to my chest.

And then it’s over, like someone pulled the plug out of the bathtub, words draining away until we’re just left gasping for oxygen.

And I walk over to the shallow end of a swimming pool and wonder why I can’t stay in there with my feet firmly planted on the bottom.

Only to realize that a sea of thoughts is not a bad thing. If I can learn to navigate the rough waters without pulling others under with me.

Some days I fail and flounder, not sure which way is up, grasping at anything and everything around me.

Other days I hand out floaties and try to help others pull themselves up into their boats.

And I must remind myself that I am my own lighthouse. And they are theirs. And we are all just trying to find our way home to ourselves through our storms.