The road goes ever on and on,
Out from the door where it began,
Now far ahead the road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with weary feet,
Until it joins some larger way,
Where many paths and errands meet,
And whither then?
I cannot say.-J.R.R.Tolkien

I heard the sea once.
I had found a shell, a marvelous shell, brought to Mirkwood by a traveling peddler. The glistening hard conch fascinated me, and I wanted to buy it. I would lie on my bed for hours, hearing it, unaware of the passing tide of time, too immersed in the tides of the sea. The echoes would repeat in my mind for hours afterwards, and my dreams were laced with sea and gull; wind and sail.
Then, as many childhood toys do, it broke. And, as many childhood toys are, it was forgotten.
Partially.
For even then, I believe, the longing had sprung in my heart to travel to lands unknown to myself. Sweet Eressa. The elven home. But, like a seed laying dormant, it bothered me not greatly. It was simply a longing, one smallest bit of my heart that was never truly at rest.
But then, as I have learned only too often, rest is usually not the path fate chooses for me.
I lived my life, traveled the paths I so chose to take. I didn’t look back, left no regrets, yet I was not at peace.
Galadriel’s warning was not unexpected. The desire, pure, consuming longing for the sea had been growing for the last few years. And yet, the forest still sang to me. I could hear the trees, how they whispered and talked to me, and the love of all things green and alive was still strong in me. The two desires, so unalike, were tearing my heart in two.
Yet I buried my own worries and burdens deep, and instead, helped Frodo and the Fellowship with a burden of their own. When Elessar was crowned king, I ignored the blatant call of the ocean, and cheered him proudly with the rest of Gondor. When Gimli and I wandered through Fangorn and the thousand caves, I ignored it. When Aragorn and Arwen’s children were born, each time I stayed just a little bit longer, loving them like an uncle.
I wept when he died. Oh, how I wept when the mightiest king to reign died.
And I knew when the messenger came, that two deaths had occurred. For though mortals may love elves, and elves love mortals, few can comprehend the piercing sorrow the ages lay upon us all, and how much more deadly grief can be than sword or spear. I knew Arwen was dead as well.
And so I wept for them. My two friends, lost. And the sea sang to me softly, and it too, mourned.
Then at last with my friend Gimli I set sail. There, on the ship, the salt wind blowing hard, the spray all around, and the memories standing on the deck beside me, I felt the beginnings of a longing. The forest. How I missed it. The cool bowers whispering in softly blowing breezes in the midday heat.
So here I live, a heart divided. I love the sea and love the forest. Peace always evades me. Yet happiness can always be found in friends, and many things that Middle-Earth has not yet seen wait on the Western Shore. But rest is not one of them for me.
Then again, rest has never been the road laid before me.