Surfing Ruined My Life

And then just like that it happened.  I must admit I have been feeling a bit of a failure at life lately as was evident in the Summer of Alf recap blog.  Do you know I was seriously considering leaving Santa Barbara to move into my parents Florida house so that I could live rent free and save some money to make a fresh go of things.  It was a really long summer this year and I think I put a few too many over ambitious expectations on myself.  I also think that society and its pressures for how a person of my age is suppose to live/act had a bit do with things as well.

End result I found myself freaking out that I was not where I was suppose to be.  Who knows more about where one is suppose to be besides himself?  I read a very interesting quote the other day something that up until lately I have always lived by: “The culture we have does not make people feel good about themselves.  And you have to be strong enough to say if the culture doesn’t work don’t buy into it”.   As of late I had been buying into it.

I began to climb into this terrible relapse of self pity I seem to revel in with the utmost countenance.  Another thing I recently picked up from my current book Tuesdays with Morrie is trying to only allow myself ten minutes of self pity either at the end or beginning of my day and then its on with the rest of my day, night, week, month, year and eventually life.  Its very easy for me to get lost on the path of life.  I am distracted very easily be it negative or positive stimulation or the two together.

Then a day like today comes along and I am reminded once again that all the bullshit that frustrates the hell out of me day in and day out does not mean a damn thing.   When I dropped into the first wave for me of the season today at Rincon, set my rail, pulled that first twenty yard bottom turn back up towards the cascading lip, punching through it with the nose of my board, feeling my tail come free on the re-entry and hearing the crash of the spray falling all around, then repeating this on that same wave about eight more times before finishing up with a three foot gap air all my problems and despair were gone.  Eradicated from my mind in a matter of seconds.

I can’t remember the last time I smiled so big for so long.  Everyone around me was stoked too adding to the surreal feeling of the moment.  The other day I surfed small Emma Wood with this body boarder and he was amping on the meager offerings that I was basically giving a forced paddle cause I drove.  Turned out to be a pretty fun little session, you can read the surf log for more on that.  Afterward we were both changing at our respective vehicles, him putting on his shirt and tie and me my chef pants and coat.  Before driving away he looked at me and said “And now back to reality”.

What is reality anyway?  I used to believe it was living within the parameters set by our current society.  That just about never made me happy thus Lisanti Land became my warped sense of reality and I found life to be for the most part happier.  Maybe for me reality is working and struggling for that occasion surf session where everything falls into place like today and things make sense.

Yeah on paper I may come off as a bum.  I am 31 years old and barely make enough to cover my expenses, have to live with a roommate, stuck in a dead end job.  I don’t have a family of my own and may never get that opportunity.  I can’t keep a woman or at the moment even get one to entertain the idea of being with me.  But, I can go out and catch a hand full of amazing waves at Rincon or most other surf spots for that matter and turn that moving bump of water into my own personal canvas where I paint my soul for sometimes no longer then a fraction of a second and then its gone forever.  In my head that memory, that feeling shall never fade.

Please keep that big house on the hill, that nice car, the picture perfect girl and subsequent family. Take your fancy high paying job you sold your soul for and stuff it.   At the end of the day I am the one in the barrel and that is what my life has been about for as long as I can remember.  That piece of foam and fiberglass under my feet cruising down a glassy line with out a drop of water out of place, that is where my soul is, that is my salvation…