There is a story here...

He keeps trying to write in the sand but the waves slide relentlessly over his work and erase his efforts.   Randomly he gets one word done and snaps a picture.   I watch him in sidelong glances from where I am sitting in the sand several feet above the tentacles of the highest wave.

In between glances, I gaze out into the wide, wild, endless Hawaiian ocean spreading before me and I try to breathe away the last 7 years of stress.

I see him again, this time trying to pose and take a selfie in front of his word but the waves comes and wash it away and also gets his butt wet.   He writes "Marry Me" in the sand, over and over and over again but the tide keeps washing it away, and finally when he gets it done and poses, the water just comes right up and drenches him.   I wonder if this is an omen?

I choose this moment to leap up and run a few feet closer to the tide line.   I scrawl my own word with a fierce defiant pressure, using my index finger and hurrying before the next wave comes.   I write, "REGRET".

I am left waiting, wave after wave, for the ocean to come and claim my regret, to take it away from me, to erase it.   I wait far longer than I thought I would, much longer than Mr. Marry Me, but when a wave finally does break high enough and come rushing toward my word, it only erases a portion of it.

There is a story here I'm sure...