I have structured this as a reflective, narrative-style post, suitable for a personal blog, a literary journal, or a cultural commentary site. There is a phrase in Spanish that carries the weight of a thousand storms: Lo que el agua se llevó.
But if you sit with the phrase long enough, you realize it’s not just about natural disasters. It’s about the quiet, inevitable erosions of life. We spend so much of our lives trying to build against the current. We construct identities, accumulate possessions, weave relationships, and draw maps of our futures. We act as if life is dry land—solid, predictable, permanent. Lo Que El Agua Se Llevo
The water takes, yes. But it also reveals. It washes away the clutter, the pretense, the "someday" dreams you were only holding out of habit. What remains is the essential. The irreducible. The real. I am not going to tell you that losing things is beautiful. It isn’t. Loss is loss. Grief is grief. I have structured this as a reflective, narrative-style
At first glance, it sounds literal. A flood sweeping through a village. A river reclaiming its floodplain. A sudden wave crashing against the shore. The water comes, and the water goes. In its wake, things are missing. A photograph. A house. A bridge you crossed every morning on your way to school. It’s about the quiet, inevitable erosions of life
You look for the people who showed up with towels and coffee and silence. You look for the stories that didn’t need photographs to stay alive. You look for the part of yourself that didn’t drown—the part that is still breathing, still standing, still willing to rebuild.
Because if the water took it, then maybe the water was always going to take it. Maybe some things are only lent to us, not given. Maybe we are not owners of our lives but temporary caretakers of moments. So tonight, light a candle for what the water took from you.
And one day, without warning, it takes something. A job you thought was secure. A friendship you assumed would last forever. A version of yourself that you swore you’d never lose.