Lake Michigan, Photo credit: me.
Lake Michigan, Photo credit: me.

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What Do You Do When the Ocean Isn’t Big Enough to Hold Your Grief?

Nature isn’t always a magic band-aid for your brain.

Gray Miller
5 min readFeb 14, 2022

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I stared at the water, and thought it’s not fair.

I still hurt.

It was a beach in Seattle in Fall of 2006, and so it was a bit chilly, a bit overcast. Rocks covered the shore instead of sand, and I was sitting on a convenient piece of driftwood that had been worn smooth by wind and water — and, likely, many asses like mine sitting on it, looking out at the waves.

I felt betrayed, because the panoramic vista of the skyline, with clouds backlit by the sun, wasn’t doing anything for me.

And it was supposed to. I’d been telling myself for weeks that this was the place, this was where I could dump all the pain and grief and confusion and hurt and anger that was roiling around inside.

But now I was here, and the ocean wasn’t big enough.

I did not handle the end of my marriage well.

In 2007, there was a big breakup in my life.

Out of respect for those involved I won’t go into details, but the circumstances ended up being that most of my close relationships ended over a period of two weeks.

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Gray Miller
Gray Miller

Written by Gray Miller

Gray is a former Marine dancer grandpa visualist who writes to help adults figure out what they want to be when they grow up.

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