Surfing Ruined My Life

I have written all this before and am beginning to sound like a broken record.  If such is the case so be it.  You know what one of the definitions of insanity is?  Doing the same thing over and expecting different results.  At this point in my life I have stopped expecting different results.   Maybe that means I am no longer insane?  Or at the very least not in the that sense.   I think I still classify for the derangement of the mind meaning.

I am not going to lie to you people I have been blowing it hard lately.  You know that New Years proclamation I made about  drinking less and putting my efforts toward more positive actions.   As it turns out since the first I have been partying harder then ever and drinking like a fish.  I must say that at this point I am for augments sake a functioning alcoholic.  I guess it was only a matter of time.  Then again through out my entire life I have went through periods of heavy drink followed by periods of relative sobriety.  Maybe this is just an up turn on the drink side.

Last night I went out to the Wild Cat full on expecting to get shit house wasted and throw an after party at the palace despite the fact that I knew it was the first day of school Monday and that I had a 7am class.  End result of the festivities was finding myself doing vodka shots at 6am while Kooky prepared to go to work.  Needless to say I did not make it to class instead sleeping the entire day away.  The good news is I won the urban indoor golf game we played at 4am to the enjoyment of all my neighbors trying to get some sleep on a Sunday night for their Monday work days.

A few weeks ago I would have been shocked that I would do such a thing. Not this morning.  Nope, everything that went down all the way to this chick I was sort of into hooking up with another friend of mine right in front of me was not surprising at all.  I have truly become one of those Santa Barbara loser idiots I used to make fun of.  At this point I am working on becoming a complete waste of space.

I had this realization of how hard I am currently blowing it in life as I  stood there mid point this afternoon at El Capitan watching five guys enjoy small little waste high plus peelers.  I sat there holding my wet suit still a bit drunk taking it all in.  The green grass rock speckled ground under my feet, the setting sun and subsequent orange sky, the fact that I could not see anything around me but trees and rolling green hills with a llama ranch on it.  And of course the waves.  El Capitan is perfect.  I mean perfect.  Watching the waves break there is mesmerizing.  I don’t think there is a surfer alive who would shake a stick at it.

The cool wind felt amazing on my face.  I took a deep breath of the fresh air.  This is what life is really about I thought at that moment.  This is what I should be doing.  I am better then some alcohol swilling miscreant of the night in a vain attempt to drink my problems away.   Why had I let myself get to this point.  The in shape motivated 22 year old professional surfing Chris Lisanti would slap the shit out of me if he got into a time machine and saw me, himself and what I have let myself become.  I don’t know if I have found rock bottom yet, but I am for the most part at the moment  existing at the bottom of the barrel.

I tugged my wetsuit on and jumped into the water.  My head hurt a bit from both hangover and dehydration.  I stroked into my first wave, a clean waist high peeler and cracked off three solid turns.  Then I started catching a bunch of fun ones dismantling each with a solid backside attack.  Things made perfect sense out in the water. If only I felt the same way on land.  There in lies the problem perchance.  I have been spending far too much time on land and far too little in the water.

Towards the end of the evening as darkness was settling in Kooky and I post change stood there in solitude watching one last perfect little set peel down the point.  I looked at him and said “you know I am better then all this”.  He gave me an approving nod.   We turned away and walked through the dark to the car.  I don’t have answers right now, only questions.     I can’t promise anything.  What I do know is that I can do better…