The wind was cool as it blew strands of my hair into my face. The ocean glimmered with the lights of the city and the stars. The sky was a cool midnight blue, enveloping me in its serenity, and reminding me of memories long suppressed. Sitting down on a rock beside where I was standing, I dipped my toes into the lukewarm water and smiled as I heard the voices of years gone by calling me.
I heard my mother telling me, as a young child, to wait until after dinner to have a cookie, and to eat my vegetables. I heard my father telling me where to put my fingers on the fret board of the guitar that I so badly wanted to learn to play to please him; I remembered his face with his expression of gentle encouragement. I heard my sister as a toddler, just learning to talk, calling my name; recreated in my mind the way she ran into my open arms laughing gleefully. I heard the phone ring in the middle of the night to tell me that my grandfather had died; the tears welled up in my eyes all over again at that thought. But I brushed them away as I heard the voice of my high school sweetheart calling my name, and even imagined the feel of his arms around me as he spun me around and kissed me. The roar of the ocean brought me back to reality, and opening tearful eyes once more, I smiled a little.
Reality took its place once more in my life, and stashed my memories way in the back of my mind again. The only arms wrapped around me were my own, and the only music was the sound of the ever-flowing ocean. I brushed the hair out of my face, and tucked it behind an ear; seeing the city lights reflected on the ocean the way they were made me ponder the things that might have been.
