When my husband and I visited Florida a few weeks ago, we spent hours at the beach. We watched kids playing in the sand, young couples holding hands, and seagulls bullying picnic goers for food. It was early March, but the weather was warm bordering on hot, and the sun was a heavy presence you could feel pushing against your neck so that the clouds became a relief as they drifted across the sky.

We watched a couple of teenage girls draw a picture in the sand at low tide. They spent almost an hour creating swirls and letters, squatting down to make a mark here and there, then standing up again to see how it was all coming together. They had to keep an eye on the big picture and make sure they were working together to reach their desired end product. They finished just as you could see the waves start creeping back up the beach, and you knew the tide was rolling back from the depths of the gulf to reclaim whatever it could find along that stretch of sand. They called out to me and asked if I’d mind taking a few photos of them together by their masterpiece, and I obliged, of course. After a few smiles and a thank you, they headed back down the beach towards their families, and I was left to watch the water come up.

They’d drawn a large and intricate heart, full of flowering vines. It stretched across the beach for roughly 6 ft. Inside the heart, they’d written:

JAS + RLN

BEST FRIENDS FOREVER

DER, REST IN PEACE

 Looking at their initials, I had to wonder about DER. Whoever it was, it was important enough to them to spend an hour drawing in the sand. I suddenly hoped I’d gotten the full message in the photos I’d taken of them. I returned to my beach chair, curious and a little bit sad as I watched the waves invade the upper swirls of the heart. By the time my husband and I headed for the car, the heart was gone, along with the best friends and the mysterious DER. Time and tide had erased all signs

Thinking back on that afternoon at the beach, I’m struck by the symbolism of that day—how committed the girls were as they went about their task and how they must have known that their efforts would quickly be erased by the sea, but they continued anyways. We spend so much of our time planning, making intricate drawing of our hopes and dreams for tomorrow. We all know that eventually we’ll run out of time, and unfinished plans will remain that way, but we all know that it’s still important, still worth doing. We all have a best friends and DERs of our own that are so worth our time and energy.

This all crosses my mind as I’m in the final few months before making the biggest life change that I’ve experience in a long while. I know that I’ve written thousands of hopes, dreams, and plans in the sand, and I’m hopeful that I’ll have plenty of long, sunny days in which to enjoy them. But I also know that so many people feel like they’re toiling away, saving a little bit here and there, and that it can feel like you’re drawing in the sand and fighting an ever advancing tide, whether that be debt payments, daily expenses or both. I hope that anyone who is struggling through that challenge is able to step back every once in a while and see the big picture. I hope that they know that despite those struggles, the plans and memories that they’re drawing in the sand, and the friends that they’re drawing with, make it all worth it.

I hope that I got the whole picture in that photo, and I hope that you do too. I’m Retiring Tina, and I still have just a little bit more work to do.