The Ache, the Ocean, and the Kind of Love That Stays

Some pieces write themselves. This one poured out of me on the other side of a heavy wave.
It’s for anyone who’s lived with mental health, moved through invisible aches, or ever wondered if they could be fully seen in their messiest moments.
It’s for the ones who’ve been taught to hide their heaviness.
And it’s a love letter to the kind of knowing that heals.

If you’ve ever felt the weight of your own mind… this is for you.

There are times I genuinely believe the doctors got it wrong.

That there’s no way I have bipolar.
That maybe it was just trauma.
That I healed myself.
That I somehow outgrew it, outloved it, out-evolved it.

And then… it hits.
Out of nowhere.
No warning. No reason. No pattern to trace.

The mean reds.
That aching, bottomless despair I can’t account for.
A devastation that arrives uninvited, with no clear trigger.

And I succumb.
I surrender to my bed.
Wrap myself in blankets, burritoed in sadness that, in some strange way, feels like home.

Even after all these years, it still surprises me.
That it can still catch me off guard.
That I can look over the days and weeks before and find no energy leak. No burnout. No logical reason for the ache that’s taken over.

Today, it hit.
That familiar, frustrating, impossible-to-explain wave.

I lay there, swallowed by the heaviness in my chest, only my eyes and nose peeking out from under the doona.

And my love sat beside me.

He didn’t flinch.
Didn’t fill the silence with solutions.
Didn’t meet my flatness with frustration.

When I whispered, “I feel flat… like the joy has been drained from everything,” he knew.
He knew exactly what that meant.

He knows that when the mean reds arrive, they drain the colour from my memories. They suck the sweetness from my present. Everything goes heavy, hazy, grey.

To be known is to be loved.

And to be loved by him… is to be met, softly, fully.

It’s him quietly getting our sun into his bathers, bag packed with everything we need.
It’s him walking into the cavern I’ve disappeared into and gently offering the way out: “Let’s go to the beach.”

Because he knows.

Knows the beach is my soul’s home.
My restore place.
Knows the sand drains the heaviness from my bones.
Knows the salt cleanses the ache from my soul.
Knows the sun resparks my joy.

To be known is to be loved.

I think of this as I sink beneath the surface.
As I surrender to the gentle ebb and flow.
As only my eyes and nose rise above the water.
As I hear our sun’s giggles carried on the wind from the shore.

And suddenly
I feel it.

To the depth of my being.
The way love can meet the ache.

A smile tugs at my cheeks.
And I’m no longer stuck in the heaviness.

I’ve landed back in my body.

I feel every grain of sand between my toes, every strand of salty hair.

And I thank her
Every past version of me who kept going.
Who faced the darkness again and again.
Who cracked the door open wide enough to let this love in.

Who let herself be known, even when the ache begged her to hide.

And I’m so fucking grateful I did.

Because on the days the mean reds try to convince me I’m unlovable…

He shows me.

Over and over again.

To be known is to be loved.

And oh… how I am loved.

If this piece spoke to something in you, I’d love to hear what it stirred.
Have you ever felt the ache of being “too much”? Or the grace of being met in your shadows, not just your shine?
My inbox and comment section are open, I’d be honoured to witness your story too.