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On Being Grateful, Even When I’m Really Not

July 1, 2014July 1, 2014 Lauren Dado Leave a comment

“Do you keep a gratitude journal?”

I was asked this question by a Couchsurfer I shared a host with in Sabah – a Couchsurfer who, no matter how hard I tried, couldn’t stand to be around with. He’s one of those ridiculously extroverted Americans who has unshakable opinions about everything, never misses an opportunity to let their thoughts be known, and is completely oblivious to how this can annoy the crap out of people around them. As someone with unshakable opinions herself, almost every conversation with him felt like an invitation to an argument. I’d try to keep the peace by staying silent, but every now and then I’d give in to the urge to fire back with a counter-argument or sarcastic reply.

He asked me this question while on a bus to downtown Kota Kinabalu. It was my first time commuting to town from our host’s apartment, and he offered to show me how to get there and find my way back. A kind gesture, except after two days of traveling with him, I was barely receptive to anything he said.

“Well,” I began. “I keep a journal. But it’s just a regular journal where I digest my experiences and allow myself to feel what I feel. I think it’s dishonest to try and be grateful during moments when you’re not.”

“But the times you feel the least grateful are the times you need gratitude the most,” he replied.

What an asshole, I thought as I rolled my eyes and stared out the window.

Yet I found myself thinking about his words during my walk home from work today. I’ve been struggling with an inexplicable bout of sadness all day, the kind that creeps up from out of nowhere and threatens to explode in full-blown pity party. I didn’t know what to do with my feelings, didn’t feel like talking to anyone about it or using alcohol to escape the discomfort of my own head. But in spite of the dark thoughts rattling around my brain, what the Couchsurfer said on the bus rang loud and clear:

The times you feel the least grateful are the times you need gratitude the most.

When the chemicals in my brain go off-kilter and tell me that I will never ever ever experience happiness again, it does help to look at the highlight reel of my life and be thankful for the amazing things that have happened thus far. While I’m still not convinced that I will be happy again, it comforts me to know that good things still happen even when I think I don’t deserve it.

So to power through my sadness, let me make a list of things I’m grateful for, in no particular order:

I’m grateful for the relatively short daily commute, for every evening I have the time and energy to cook a decent meal, and for the apartment I call my home.

I’m grateful for parents who love me as I am, and who encourage me to only be myself.

I’m grateful for my job, for everything I’m learning so far, and for opportunities disguised as projects about to blow up in my face. I’m grateful to have of sharp, hardworking, and seriously awesome coworkers who make panicked deadlines feel less like a catastrophe and more like an achievable goal.

I’m grateful for the time a coworker once caught me smoking while I was sad, listened to me cry and ramble over lunch and ice cream, and said, “You’re a beautiful and intelligent girl with a great life ahead of you. I’m only telling you this because I don’t think you say it to yourself at all. Everything is going to be all right.”

I’m grateful the gift of surfing, even when the only surf I can get is whitewash. I’m grateful for every wave I’ve caught and ridden. I’m grateful I can go surfing at all despite being constantly strapped for cash and out of shape.

I’m grateful for all the people I’ve paddled out with, for every long car ride to the ocean, for every long lost friend I found through our shared love of surfing.

I’m grateful that surfing takes me to the beach so often that it feels like a second home.

I’m grateful I can travel despite my limited vacation leaves and limited disposable income. I’m grateful for the brief and fleeting friendships with amazing people on the road, and for the evenings that turned into mornings in their company.

I’m grateful for friends from around the world who welcomed me into their homes and treated me like family.

I’m grateful for friends who care enough about me to break through the walls I built around my heart, and who still stick around even when I think I’m incapable of making deep, meaningful connections with anyone.

I’m grateful for the love I have had and lost.

I’m grateful for the good times with friends I’m not friends with anymore. I’m grateful to have known them at all.

I’m grateful for every sunset I see, and every rare morning I’m awake early enough for the sunrise.

I’m grateful for the kindness of people I wasn’t always kind to. And I am grateful for this important and humbling lesson on gratitude from a fellow traveler who, I must admit, was completely right about something for once.

Surfing In Cancun: A First-timer’s Guide

June 19, 2014June 19, 2014 Lauren Dado Leave a comment

Mexico is the perfect destination for the traveller who is seeking fun, excitement and a host of unforgettable experiences. Amongst the country’s resorts Cancun and by signing up for holidays in Cancun, you’ll experience a surfing haven that provide endless fun for travellers who want to have some fun by the beach and at the same time get away from work responsibilities. Little wonder then that the sport of surfing has taken off in such a huge way in Mexico, for it perfectly captures the nation’s ‘live for today’ attitude.

Visiting Cancun

Cancun is situated on Mexico’s stunning Caribbean coast and is a renowned tourist resort. Visitors are attracted by the area’s shops, restaurants and vibrant nightlife but can also enjoy Cancun’s natural beauty and unspoiled beaches. Many of resort’s hotels are located along Cancun’s coral reef, the second-longest in the world.

Surfing in Cancun

Surfing has been popular on Mexico’s Pacific coast for some time now. In the last few years, however, surfers have discovered the pristine white beaches and thrilling waves of the country’s eastern coast. Amongst the surfing centres along this coast Cancun is the most popular. Obviously its excellent tourist infrastructure and good travel links help, but the main reason for its popularity is its many breath-taking beaches.

Amongst Cancun’s many surfing beaches Playa Delfines stands out. The beach is away from central Cancun but close to many of the major hotels. The sand is clean, the views gorgeous and the waves and swell excellent for surfing. Playa Delfines has plenty of places to park and showers and toilets are available at several points.

One of the spinoffs of the development of surfing in and around Cancun is the growth of a number of surfing schools. These can provide instruction, board hire and transport to the best beaches. For the complete beginner some schools even guarantee that they will coach you into standing on your board or they will give you your money back. But look for a school that has the assurance of some kind of industry registration.

So Why Wait?

Is there anything more thrilling than riding a wave perched on top of a surfboard? No motor, no petrol fumes; just you, the sea, the sky and the sound of the waves. Whether you’re a beginner or an experienced surfer, Cancun offers all of this and more.

So This is What FOMO Feels Like

May 2, 2014May 2, 2014 Lauren Dado Leave a comment

It’s 10 pm on a Friday night and I’m completely couch-locked with a Girls rerun on the TV, too lazy to reach for the remote and put something else on. The only pressing matter on my mind is whether or not I should put on some pants and take the trash out. Somewhere out there, my friends are kick-starting the weekend with drinks or getting ready to drive to the nearest swell. But not me. For once, I’m perfectly content to be half-paying attention to the TV, contemplating the societal importance of pants while I idly scratch my bum. It doesn’t sound like much, but I am having a blast.

There was once a time where lazy evenings spent at home were the norm, and beach trips or a night out drinking was an annual event that only happened when there was something celebrate other than life itself. Then I stopped dating and started surfing. Then I started meeting of all sorts of fun people who invited me to do all the things I never did while I was busy being a nerd. Things like having alcohol-assisted conversations, instead of using board games to overcome our collective social awkwardness. Things like scrambling for a place in a crowded bus to take us to our favorite beach break. You know, real life adventures, the kind I’ve always wanted to have but never had the guts to go for until I developed social skills and a thick skin.

The thing with me is that I don’t know when to stop enjoying a good thing until I have too much of it. I became uncharacteristically hypersocial, the kind of person that says yes to everything. Beer on a Tuesday? Sure, let’s ignore the fact that I have to be awake and lucid for a meeting in a few hours! Surf trip this weekend? I can’t afford to eat anything but boiled monggo until then, but okay!

FOMO

The “fear of missing out” is the compulsion to go out and Do Something before life passes you by. It’s typically brought by the anxiety that tugs at your mind when you scroll through your social media feeds and see how much fun everyone is having. I actually had to Google this because I didn’t understand what “being afraid to miss out” meant until I found myself missing my apartment while in the company of my favorite people. Yeah, I know that this is exactly the opposite of what FOMO is (ie. fantasizing about doing something more exciting because of your life’s perceived dullness). But follow my thought process: if I wish I were indoors and lazy while I’m out supposedly experiencing life, could I have been acting out of FOMO rather than a genuine desire to go out and be with people?

I suppose the answer is yes. I’m an introvert at heart, and the social nature of my job gives me more than my minimum daily requirement of human interaction. Never in my life have I had to make so much small talk today! And tomorrow, I have to do it all over again! Usually, I’d be fine calling it a day at 5 pm and holing up in my girl-cave until the next morning. But I began developing the habit of staying late at work by choice so I can hang out with my coworkers after.

the new normal

My weekends are spent surfing or hanging out at my favorite bar until the sun rises. Either way, I’m surrounded by people, listening to their stories and sharing some of mine. It’s slightly worse when you’re gone surfing in someone’s car instead of taking the bus. You really don’t want to be THAT person – the one who sleeps during the ride and skips out on the unwritten rule that all surfmobile passengers must help the driver stay sane by contributing to the conversation, the driving, or both. So you need to stay awake even when every cell in your body is screaming for sleep. Putting on earphones and retreating into your own head is not really an option either.

I miss curling up with a good book in bed, but I keep abandoning my plans to stay in every time an opportunity to hang out comes up. And when I do have an empty day ahead of me, I realize that I’m not in the mood to be alone, and find ways to surround myself with company.

the old normal

The last time I stayed in was Holy Thursday, and even then I didn’t really enjoy it. I woke up at noon and refused to move for an hour, because there was no plan for the day and reason to get out of bed. Instead of being comforted by that thought, I got gripped by a kind of panic. EVERYONE in this world is having a more awesome time than I am, living it up at the beach or doing whatever it is people consider fun on Holy Thursdays. What am I doing still in bed??

Immediately I started texting people with invitations to hang out, each text getting slightly more desperate as friends declined with a “No, I’m not in town.” “No, I refuse to get out of bed.” “No, we just hung out for like 12 hours yesterday, what is wrong with you.” By mid-afternoon, denial gave way to acceptance, and I played a movie to relax and enjoy this rare moment of solitude. I can’t remember what movie I put on because that’s how un-relaxed I was, what with me being The Only Person on This Planet Alone on a Holy Thursday and all. When I started really settling into my aloneness, I got a text from Helga asking to hang out at Joey’s. I was out the door before I could even thumb in a “yes”.

47 texts

My FOMO is definitely driven by anxiety, but not the social media envy kind where I wish my life could be as action-packed as my Facebook friends’. Ugh, if only it were that simple. My FOMO is more like an onion, with many layers of fears to it:

Layer 1: Fear of Never Getting Invited to Do the Thing Again

At the most superficial layer is the fear that if I say no, that person will think that I am never interested in hanging out or doing the thing, and will therefore stop inviting me to do the thing again.

Layer 2: Fear of Everyone Hanging Out Without Me

Nothing makes me feel quite like a loser like knowing that everyone is hanging out without me. So if I say yes to everything and be my most charming self the entire time, I can trick people into thinking that I’m part of the group, and then they’ll always ask me to come with!

awesome time

Layer 3: Fear of Not Making the Most Out of Our Temporary Friendship

People get into relationships, get married, move to a different country, or have kids. Whatever it is, there is always a major life event that keeps a friend from spending as much time with you as they used to. For this reason, I view all of my friendships as temporary and I don’t expect anyone to stick around for long. But I don’t want to take anyone’s company for granted, either. So I make the most out of my limited time with a friend by saying yes to everything, until he or she stops asking me to hang out at all.

Layer 4: Fear of Not Living Before I Die

I constantly worry that I’m not making the most out of my limited time on earth. What if global warming burns us alive tomorrow and I never get to do all the things I want to do? Nobody lies on their deathbed wishing they spent more time schlepping around in their apartment without pants on. Or do they?

Layer 5: Fear of Being Alone

Sometimes, I suspect my fears have less to do with all those other layers and more to do with being afraid to be alone with my thoughts, my overthinking thoughts. My mind tends to wander into places it shouldn’t go unless I silence it with substances or the chatter of other people. Clearly I need to develop healthier coping mechanisms.

I know that FOMO is likely not a “real” problem, and that I should be grateful for my experiences instead of overthinking this stuff. But being gripped by FOMO is incredibly exhausting, especially if you’re not used to being constantly surrounded by people. I’m actually giving serious thought to temporarily deactivating my Facebook so I can stop compulsively checking it for messages and alerts, hoping that one of them is an invitation to go somewhere. Before I do anything drastic though, it might help to try saying no to nights out and yes to more time alone.

yes to staying in more

And tonight, I feel great. If there’s anything FOMO taught me, it’s that saying yes to something also means saying no to something else. Now that I’ve had more than enough interactions and trips out of town, I’m looking forward to the things I’ve been saying no to lately. Things like:

1) working out
2) catching up on my favorite TV shows
3) actually reading the books I bought on Amazon months ago
4) getting better at the ukulele
5) sitting on my couch, existing, for no reason at all

How to Have a Pregnancy Scare

March 12, 2014March 12, 2014 Lauren Dado Leave a comment

Have the kind of sex that involves the condom breaking. Think nothing of it until you realize you are probably ovulating because of you have an insatiable craving for carbs and recently bawled at work for stupid reasons unrelated to your job. Take the only emergency contraceptive that’s available in a country where Plan B is considered an abortifacient: 4 Trust pills within 72 hours of unprotected sex, then another 4 pills 12 hours later. Go to bed thinking, “Any day now, my period will come. Any day now.”

Three days later, be 100000000 times more emotional and sensitive than you normally are when you’re PMSing, because the hormones are now working their anti-pregnancy magic on your body. Be aware that hormone-bombing your body makes you go a little crazy and prepare yourself for the emotional shitstorm ahead.

Do the groceries, clean your apartment, go for a swim – anything to get your mind off things. During a break in between laps, finally release the tears you’ve been choking back all day. Spend the rest of the evening throwing a pity party of epic proportions on your living room floor, hair still damp from the pool water. Start smoking again, because fuck this shit. Think about all the coincidences and choices that led you to this moment. Think self-defeating thoughts about how inherently unlovable you are. Feel very scared and alone.

Decide to take a pregnancy test a week and a day after the broken condom episode. Have friends over for moral support and draw courage from half a bottle of wine. Feel relief at seeing just one red dash. Think that any day now, your period will come. Any day now.

Cat-Pregnancy-Test-Meme

Panic a little when there are is still no signs of blood three days later. Panic some more when you discover you’re supposed to take pregnancy tests first thing in the morning, not close to midnight on a Friday after downing half a bottle of wine. Decide to take another pregnancy test the coming weekend, and to somehow keep it together until then.

Have your secret spill out of your mouth at lunch on Monday because your panic can’t be contained. Feel relieved and expect words of comfort when one of your friends says he thought of something to make you feel better. Shake your head in disbelief as your coworkers start brainstorming names for your potential future child instead.

Reevaluate your beliefs about abortion. Decide that even though safe and legal abortions should be made available to women everywhere, it’s not an option that you would choose for yourself. Find this to be an odd decision, because selfish choices are the only choices you know how to make. Maybe it’s all that Catholic school brainwashing. Maybe it’s because you know someone who died too young. Maybe it’s because you’ll spend the rest of your life hating yourself for denying anyone the chance to love and be loved and live. Because despite all the suffering in this world, you know that life is a wonderful thing, and in spite of your issues, you have a lot of love to give.

Also, you don’t want to risk death from a botched back-alley abortion. You don’t even know where to get a back-alley abortion done.

Talk to your mother because she is probably the only person in the world who loves you. Find the nerve to bring up your fears as you listen to her gossip about someone who just got disowned by her parents. What would make a parent disown their child, she wonders out loud.

“Oh, I don’t know,” you say with false nonchalance. “Wouldn’t you disown me if I got accidentally knocked up?”

“Gaga,” your mother replies. “I would be happy if you got pregnant.”

“Even if the father was a one night stand?”

“Well I’d rather that he weren’t.”

Yep, abortion is definitely no longer an option.

safe sex

Have another hormone-induced crying fit. Think about all the nights you’ll never have at your favorite bar because you have to breastfeed or sing nursery rhymes or do whatever it is mothers do on Saturday nights. Think about how being a single mother will make you REALLY undateable now. Think about how thrilled your frenemies will be and how your relatives will give you so much shit for getting knocked up by some tourist whose name you can barely remember and whose last name you don’t know. Realize that single motherhood comes with so much unnecessary judgment and shame. Think about how unfair it is to be a woman. Think about how fucking expensive it is to send a kid to school. Think about how you sometimes can’t afford to take a cab to work.

At work the next morning, Google the following search terms:
chances of pregnancy from pre-ejaculate
chances of pregnancy from broken condom
false negative on a home pregnancy test
are there any infertility gods i can pray to
how early in pregnancy does morning sickness occur because i feel really nauseous right now

See your favorite aunt who is visiting from San Francisco. Hope that you can get some of her Buddhist calm through osmosis and meditation because your friends are getting sick and tired of your moaning. Listen reluctantly as she lays down the facts.

“If you are pregnant despite all the precautions you took,” she says, “then you are ready to be a mother. I’m not religious, but I believe in serendipity and synchronicity. The universe will send you a teacher when you are ready. In this case, your teacher can be a baby.”

“But motherhood will mean that my life is over,” you whine. “I got out of a relationship because I felt stuck and trapped. I don’t want to spend the next two decades raising a kid.”

“It helps to visualize the positive. Imagine all the beautiful things you could teach a child. You might end up with a very precocious baby who’ll be reading Socrates at five years old.”

Meditate. Feel comforted by the thought that everything happens as it should. Accept that if the universe gives you a baby, then you’re going to make damn sure that kid grows up to be a smart and compassionate human being. Start making up rules on raising your child: no photos of your kid on social media until he or she is old enough to give consent, gender-neutral toys only, an enriching early academic life that will make your kid qualify for Philippine Science High School or the Philippine High School for the Arts. Begin to curate a list of books you plan to read out loud every night. Feel a little excited about your parenting project. Fall asleep wondering how to break the news to your parents.

a period is never late

Wake up with fresh blood stains on your pajamas and bedsheets. Realize that this means you get to live the life you’ve enjoyed up until your pregnancy scare – the life you’ve always wanted for yourself. Text a non-pregnancy announcement to your friends. Sterilize your menstrual cup. Allow yourself a minute to feel irritated because you just changed your sheets two days ago and now you have to change your sheets again. Quit smoking.

Walk to work with a skip to your step, your iPod playing a more cheerful soundtrack to your life. In between songs, listen to a tiny part of yourself cry, the part that felt real excitement at the thought of loving and raising your own child. Allow yourself a few seconds to feel a slight pinprick of disappointment. Decide that you definitely want a kid, someday, on your own terms. And hope that when you are ready, you’ll get to have that baby with someone who’ll stay longer than a night.

Surfing is the Best Thing to Happen to Me

February 12, 2014February 12, 2014 Lauren Dado Leave a comment

My blog, for all its raw honesty, does not paint a very accurate picture of who I am. I’m not nearly as emotional in person, and I rarely spend time mourning over ghosts. Writing about painful moments comes naturally because there’s always something to learn after a bit of detached reflection. But those times when I’m truly happy? How do I describe that without sounding like I’m humblebragging about my awesome life? The last thing I want is for this blog to be a positive ray of sunshine, bringing joy and inspiration to the disenchanted working class procrastinating on the Internet. Because that’s not what this is about.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m as human as it gets. I get sad. I get happy. Oh wow, do I get intensely happy. It’s just so hard to put all that stuff down into words, you know? Because when I’m happy, I get so delirious with joy, it feels like my chest could burst open or I might lose my mind. And then I just want to stay very still and hold on to that moment for as long as I can before it becomes a pleasant, faded memory, like all happy moments eventually do.

rooftop

Last Sunday, I sat on the rooftop of a rented beach house, too stoked to do anything but watch the Pacific ocean come and go. I was thinking about how I finally accomplished what I set out to do when I boarded a bus to La Union four months ago to take up surfing: I can finally catch and ride a wave with no help from anyone. Normally, I wouldn’t recognize my own accomplishments if it grew hands and smacked me in the face, but in that moment I understood how far I’d come. And I have never felt so fucking proud of myself.

I don’t know where the desire to learn how to surf came from. None of my friends surf beyond trying it as a novelty, and I can’t stand on a moving object to save my life. What I do know is that I woke up with yet another post-breakup hangover and thought, “Girl, you need a hobby.” For whatever reason, I decided that sliding onto a surfboard was the best way to start getting used to a life of being Forever Alone.

learn to surf la union

It wasn’t easy, and I almost regretted my decision when I went to the ocean and got viciously slapped in the face by waves of saltwater. Looking back at it now, I’m sure the waves weren’t even a foot high, but at that moment they might as well have been 10 feet tall for how intimidating they looked. As if going through the breaking waves wasn’t terrifying enough, I was also trying my damned hardest to stay on my wobbly board, which kept threatening to toss me into the ocean for being such a baby about this whole surfing thing. Wait, you mean I actually have to get up on this piece of fiberglass and somehow use it to ride these cruel waves to the shore? Why would anyone want to do that?

Eventually, my initial anxiety passed and I started to make serious attempts at standing on the board. And even though I knew how to do a pop-up in my mind, every attempt ended with me getting on my feet for two seconds, then sliding off the board ass-first.

awkward surfing

I’ve always maintained that people should only stick to what they’re good at, and if you consistently suck at something – stop. Life’s too short to be a stubborn fool and stay in denial about shortcomings you’ll never overcome. I wonder if that attitude is why writing is the only passion I kept alive all these years. There was a time where I could play the guitar and write actual songs without knowing a lick of music theory, but I quit that because I was too shy to play for a live audience. I was in love with books and wanted to make a living out of reading, writing, and studying, so I went to graduate school to study Comparative Literature. Even though I had the time of my life, I quit that too, convinced that I wasn’t smart enough to write a thesis or teach living, breathing college students.

So I was thinking that maybe it wasn’t going to work out for surfing and me. I had this fantasy of me looking sick on a surfboard, but the reality of wiping out every single damn time was very discouraging. What the fuck am I doing, I thought. I am the least graceful person here and everyone is laughing at me. (The truth is that no one at the beach cares; everyone is either surfing or trying to look cool for friends’ cameras to notice the ass-first way you fall into the ocean.)

Yet I found myself climbing back on the board after every failed attempt, determined to stay in the water until I could finally stand. And after what seemed like a million wipeouts, I managed to get up. And I didn’t fall. I don’t know what I did right this time, but I was riding to the shore on that wave, standing like I normally would on land. And I swear, I felt like I was flying.

I had to chase that feeling again.

surfing r2d2

Surfing is a tough sport, especially so if your balance sucks and you’re in poor physical shape. There’s no shortcut to becoming decent at it except hours of stubborn practice and lots of exercise. I quickly learned that finding my balance was actually the easiest part. Try paddling out beyond the breaking waves and then paddling even harder to actually catch one.

Surfing also requires a certain level of emotional maturity. You need to be okay with failure, because you will fail many times before you get it right. You need to be patient and kind to yourself every time you fall off the board or fail to catch the wave. You need to make peace with the fact that you will look like an idiot before you look like a Roxy girl. And you need focus! I recommend that you go alone and learn to surf by yourself. It’s seriously good for the soul. But if you insist on traveling with your barkada, you need to tell your friends to put the fucking camera away. Nothing is more distracting than trying to look good on a surfboard when you still suck, and nothing is more discouraging than seeing 100 photos of you wiping out for every single photo you look good.

Photo by Philippine Surfing Academy

The secret to how I got so good so fast: I took the Philippine Surfing Academy‘s Surfcuit program at Club Manila East‘s wave pool. The program ended up being slightly cheaper than traveling every weekend, plus it fit perfectly with my busy work schedule. But even this “shortcut” was a brutal one: five Sunday afternoons of grueling paddle drills, plus a self-imposed weekday regimen of boxing and swimming to strengthen my shoulders. What I love about Surfcuit is that the coaches tell you exactly what you’re doing wrong, which improves your technique and turns you into a really smart surfer. Oh, and you get to “graduate” at the beach.

lineup

A reckless decision to party until 8 am made me miss my last Surfcuit class, and I had some serious doubts about how well I’d do in the ocean. I was prepared to get left behind in the lineup while everyone flew off on their boards. I was prepared to hate myself for not taking surfing as seriously as I should have.

surfing 5

What I didn’t expect was for all those paddle drills to finally pay off, and for me to take gracefully to my board. And after a few terse instructions on how to read and catch a wave, I was soon paddling hard and getting carried off by waves all on my own.

The following morning, I skipped the Surfcuit graduation ceremony because I wanted nothing more than to get back on a surfboard after brunch. I paddled out to a part that promised longer rides, and save for two surfers, the water was surprisingly deserted. No one wants to be surfing so close to lunch time, I guess.

After a few failed attempts at catching waves, the two surfers left and I was completely alone. And I swear, at that moment, time just stopped. I stayed sitting on my surfboard, feeling the ocean rocking underneath me, recognizing the fact that this is the happiest I’ve ever been in my life.

surfing 3

And when I finally caught a wave that took me on a long ride to the shore – oh wow. I don’t even know how to describe what that’s like. All I know is that I was at completely at peace. I was exactly where I was meant to be. And even though this ride will be over in just a few seconds, it’s far from the last, because I will be spending the rest of my life chasing waves.