Some seasons, my sky fills with too many moons.
I don’t know when they arrived—only that one day I looked up inside myself and saw them: pale, restless orbs circling closer than they should. Each one moody in its own way. One swells with worry until it feels impossibly bright and heavy. Another waxes and wanes without warning, pulling my tides into sudden storms. A third hides in shadow for weeks, then slips out just enough to unsettle everything.
Living with them was exhausting. Their gravity tugged at my sleep, my breath, my quietest moments. High tides flooded my chest with racing thoughts. Low tides left me stranded, hollow and drifting. I tried to ignore them, but moons don’t care if you look away—they still pull.
So I learned to watch instead.
I started tracking their phases the way sailors once studied the night sky. Not with charts or apps, but with gentle attention. When the brightest one began to swell, I noticed the early signs: tighter shoulders, shorter breaths, the familiar hum behind my eyes. I named it softly—full-moon night coming—and prepared the way you would for a storm you can’t stop but can shelter from.
I gathered small anchors: a warm drink pressed between my palms, a playlist of songs that feel like hugs, a blanket fort on the couch, a text to a friend that simply said rough tide tonight. I learned which rituals lowered the surge even a little—deep breaths counted like heartbeats, a walk under whatever real moon was overhead, writing the worries down until they looked smaller on paper.
Some nights the pull was still fierce. The moons aligned and the waves crashed hard. But knowing their rhythm helped. They weren’t random; they were phases. Temporary. Predictable in their unpredictability.
Over time, I came to trust the new-moon calms.
Those stretches when the sky inside feels dark and strangely still. No bright swells, no sudden undertows—just quiet. At first I braced for the next waxing, certain the emptiness meant something worse was coming. But slowly, I learned to rest there. To float instead of fight. To believe the darkness was not absence, but recovery.
The moons haven’t left. They never really do. But they don’t rule the sky anymore.
Now, when I feel their familiar tug, I look up—not with fear, but with recognition. Ah, you again. I note the phase. I prepare what I need. And I wait—gently, patiently—for the light to shift once more.
Because every moon, no matter how moody, moves through its cycle. And after every full, there comes a softening. A thinning. A new-moon night where the waters finally still.
And in that quiet dark, I remember: I am the ocean, yes—but I am also the sky. Vast enough to hold them all. Strong enough to carry their tides. And steady enough to trust the calm when it comes.