The Photo I Never Posted

I took this on a first-gen iPhone in Kauai, almost ten years ago. The camera was trash, the colors washed out, but I keep coming back to this photo more than any of the perfect ones I took later. Maybe it’s nostalgia, or maybe it’s because I remember how lost I felt that day—standing on a beach everyone else called paradise, feeling like I was just passing through my own life. I never posted it. I didn’t know how to explain that a place could be beautiful and I could still feel empty. Sometimes I scroll back to it and wonder if I’d even recognize that version of myself now. #Travel #TravelConfessions #UnfilteredJourneys