Message in a Bottle – A Letter to the World Launched from Morris Island Beach

By Mark A. Leon

This morning I took the opportunity to spend a comfortable winter day on the beach and connect with the Morris Island Lighthouse on Folly Beach just outside of Charleston. As a gesture to the new year and the annual time of reflection, I wrote a letter. This was a letter to those in my past and those yet to be in my future. It is a message of thanks.

This letter was carefully placed in a bottle and sent out to the vast wide ocean. Where it ends up, I do not know, but what better way to send a message to everyone that has and will be in my life than to send it out to the most awesome thing on this Earth, the ocean..

Here is the letter that is hidden in a bottle floating in the ocean…

To all the wayward travelers of the world, on land and sea,

Life is a journey, corrupt to the core but full of majesty in very unexpected places.
With each passing day, we are faced with challenges and decisions that bring our virtues to the brink.
Life is not an easy path.

For some with faith in humanity and religion, it is but a test to the greater haven of eternity. For others, it is an eager opponent strategizing the next move. We will transform from innocent children to mature elders and along the way create a scrapbook of memories. Not just to look back on and reflect, but to hand down to the next participants in this game of Life.

Today as I look out upon the ocean, I see my future and my past crashing down with each wave. Some high and mighty; some soft and subtle. The ocean is the truest metaphor of life. It is infinite to the human eye, more powerful than any living being and yet so soft and comforting as the waters coat our bodies.

I am in awe with each footstep in the sand I leave behind.

I yearn for peace, I pursue adventure, I welcome silent comfort.

That is just it.
All of it.

We all need a spectrum of emotion to make us complete.

I have loved and lost, like most of us.
Do I live in regret for any of the loves I have lost?
I do not.

Some have married, made dramatic change and achieved great success.
For those, I smile and continue to wish them well

Each life that has passed through me reinforces my commitment to dream. As I work to make my dreams a reality, I offer this letter of thanks.

The letter and the bottle that I place it in is a vessel being sent out to all those that have been a part of my past and those in my future yet to meet.

I toss this into the ocean in hopes someone will find and carry this message forward.