I spent last week on the beach in Hanalei Bay, Kauai, one of the most beautiful places on earth, if you ask me. And while I was soaking up the beauty and the sun, I was also people watching, one of my favorite beach activities.

Since before I can remember, I have made up stories about people I see on the beach. Okay, not just on the beach. This happens everywhere, but the beach is where I am usually just sitting and not doing much of anything else, so there is more space for it to happen.

Before I ever called myself a writer, I was making up these stories. Who are these other people? Are they a family? Blended family? Extended family? Friend group? Newly dating couple? Honeymooning? Married forever? Are they having fun or barely tolerating each other? What is their deal?

When I was walking along the beach early one morning, I found myself doing the same thing with the footprints in the sand. Thinking about who all those people were walking back and forth. I was contemplating them more on my return trip, realizing that my footprints were somewhere in there too, but I had no idea which ones were mine, apart from all the others in the sand. Well, I could tell the dog prints weren’t mine, but of the human choices, I was indistinguishable.

Which then brought up a bunch of existential wonderings. (I love existential wonderings!) In addition to this idea that I am simply one of so many other humans walking on this beach and existing in this world, I also thought about the fact that all these footprints will be wiped away by tomorrow, either by surf or rain or the plethora of other walking feet.

There was a time when my insignificance and this impermanence freaked me out. I needed to believe in my exceptionality, hating the fact that I was actually no more (or less) special than anyone else. In the movie Hope Floats, Sandra Bullock has a beautiful moment talking about specialness with her daughter, and I think about that scene often.

It comes from insecurity and shame. We want to find proof that we’re special so we don’t feel like nothing, like it’s either one thing or the other. And I’d love to report that I’ve achieved inner peace to the point that I don’t think or worry about than anymore, but that is untrue, although I am gaining wisdom in this area.

I now actually like the moments when I am reminded that I am simply one of many. That we are all in this together, especially when the world can feel like it is tearing apart. We are each one of many, moving through our days, perhaps walking along the beach. Noone’s footprints are all that different from another, and none of them last, and that is okay. We can still be special to each other. It’s a paradox (I love paradox, too!) that none of us are intrinsically more or less special than another, yet we become special to each other. You may not be special, but you are special to me.