And no matter how far you drive, there are oceans you’ll never cross.

 There’s a kind of distance that doesn’t show up on maps. You could drive for days, follow every highway sign, fill the tank over and over again, and still never get closer to the thing you’re chasing.

Not because you’re lost. But because some things aren’t reachable that way.

Some oceans are people or things. People we loved but couldn't reach. Some are the lives we never got to live, the doors that closed, the chances we didn’t take, or the ones we took that turned us into strangers to ourselves. Ideas you can almost see the shape of, but the home stretch lets you down. A version of life that feels close enough to touch until you open your hand.

Suddenly, things just happen that we can't explain. When a glimpse of those lives that we could have lived pass us by, paths we could of taken, would of taken, no hesitation.   

Suddenly we have to say, 'Better luck next time.'

Think of it like studying the intricate details of a leaf. Even when you look closely, no matter how closely, you will only ever see the surface, how the veins branch out to create the sprawling path that make up its biological finger print. But you can't see inside, the DNA, the blueprint that shaped it. 

Just like our lives, we can trace back the paths we spent countless nights contemplating, and paths we threw away without any second thoughts, even if it was you or others that made those decisions, you may never fully understand the deeper forces, chance, instinct, timing, that made us choose one way over another, no matter how hard you look.

What can be done about that kind of distance? In the end, much like Earth, somethings are best understood from afar. 

-Zee