I live my life in the deep end of the ocean.
Most days, I feel like I’ve been swimming forever. My arms are heavy, my lungs are burning, and my legs ache from the effort of staying afloat.
The shore feels so far away that I wonder whether I’ll ever reach it.
Or whether it exists at all.
But some part of me believes I was meant to exist out here, in the deep, where the water is endless and the bottom is too far down to touch.
A place where I struggle to keep my head above the surface long enough to gasp for the air I need to continue.
To keep living.
To keep fighting.
I feel everything like a tidal wave.
Love. Loss. Longing. Hope. Heartbreak.
It crashes over me, fills my lungs, and leaves me breathless. It leaves me wondering whether I’ll break through the surface again or finally drown beneath the weight of it.
I don’t know how to turn it off.
I don’t know how to float quietly on the surface, untouched by the current below.
And honestly, I don’t think I want to.
To feel deeply is to live deeply.
Even when it hurts.
Even when it costs more than I realize in the moment.
I have given my heart away in pieces.
Not because I had to, but because I wanted to. Because when I care for someone, their happiness matters to me. Their pain reaches me. Their weight becomes something I instinctively try to help carry.
For a long time, I believed love was measured by how much of that weight I could absorb.
How long I could keep swimming while carrying someone else.
How close I could come to sinking without asking them to notice.
I gave willingly. I loved without reservation. And I don’t regret the depth of that love.
But I am beginning to understand that love should not require me to disappear beneath it.
Caring for someone does not require abandoning myself.
Even the strongest swimmers get tired.
Even those who refuse to sink eventually need a moment to stop fighting the current.
I am learning, slowly and painfully, that it’s okay to reach for a life raft.
Letting myself be held does not mean I am weak.
Leaning on the people who love me does not mean I have failed.
I am not meant to survive everything alone.
And maybe that is why, despite all the uncertainty, I don’t believe I’m going to drown.
There are people who will reach for me when I have nothing left. People who will pull me toward the surface and remind me that I don’t always have to swim.
Sometimes, I am allowed to float.
Sometimes, I am allowed to exist without proving that I can survive another wave.
Sometimes, I am allowed to breathe without fighting for the air.
So I will keep feeling.
I will keep giving.
I will keep loving, even when it’s hard, even when it’s uncertain, and even when it leaves me aching.
But I will also love myself enough to know when to stop.
When to rest.
When to loosen my grip on something that is pulling me under.
When to let someone else carry part of the weight.
My heart is not a burden.
My love is not a curse.
And I am not too much.
I believed I was for a long time.
Too intense.
Too emotional.
Too difficult to love without eventually becoming heavy.
Maybe that belief should have broken me. Maybe it should have convinced me to stop reaching for the surface and let the current decide where I belonged.
But it didn’t.
That belief made me fight harder.
It made me swim when my body screamed for surrender. It made me push forward when I could barely breathe. It forced me to build strength in places that might never have developed if I hadn’t spent so long questioning my own worth.
But strength built through suffering is still strength.
That doesn’t mean the suffering was necessary.
It means it did not get to destroy me.
That may be the paradox of survival.
Some of the things I thought would pull me under became the very things that taught me how to stay afloat.
The waves I believed would swallow me whole carried me forward instead.
Not gently.
Not without damage.
But forward.
So I will keep swimming.
Not because I believe I should have to struggle forever.
Not because exhaustion makes me noble.
And not because suffering is the price I must pay to deserve solid ground.
I will keep swimming because I refuse to let the depth of my own heart convince me that I am unworthy of love, peace, or a place where my feet can finally rest.
One day, maybe I’ll reach the shore.
Maybe I won’t.
Maybe I’ll discover that survival was never about escaping the ocean at all, but learning that I don’t have to fear every wave that rises around me.
Whatever waits beyond the horizon, I know this:
I will not mistake my depth for danger.
I will not apologize for the space my heart occupies.
And I will not drown.
© 2025 Kimberly Beth Thomas. All rights reserved.
💬 Join the conversation:
- Have you ever felt like you were in the deep end, fighting to stay afloat?
- What has helped you keep swimming when you thought you’d sink?
📌 If this resonated, explore more stories on resilience, healing, and self-worth here on The Berbly Project. Together, we rise when we help each other swim.