They say that you can’t get too much of a good thing. After surfing 244 days in a row I beg to differ. For those of you who may be lost let me bring you up to speed on what exacly it is I am talking about. Back in December of 2020 I did what I like to refer as a perfect month, meaning I surfed every single day during that month. As everyone can surely agree 2020 was a very rough year. For me, just about everything I worked and strived for was taken away as a result of pure unabided hysteria. My grand wedding was cut down to a virtual live viewing. Events and catering, my livlihood, was rendered non-existent. The out and about high life my wife and I enjoyed dabbling in was also completely shut down. On top of all the that the world seemed to have gone completely bat shit crazy over a virus that by the numbers didn’t seem all that severe to me. (I offer my deepest condolences to anyone who lost love ones to Covid, I mean no disrespect).
The only constant that actually has remained constant in my entire life was surfing. Try as they might no one was going to take surfing away from me. In all seriousness that probably would have been the final straw that made me snap. I was crafty and manged to continue surfing through various bans. NYE 2020 on the verge of the first year of what was ironically dubbed the “roaring twenties”, that will teach everyone for not being original, I decided that I was going to attempt to surf 365 days, from Jan 1st 2021 to December 31st 2021. Read 365 Days of Surfing blog for more details.https://surfingruinedmylife.net/2021/05/28/365-days-of-surfing/
I found myself in August standing on the dunes at Oxnard Shores on a Saturday. The buoys were barley reading 1ft and in front of me was knee high wind chop from a weak background south pulse. I dug down deep inside, put on my suit and paddled out on my fish. It would have been so easy to just call it a day and go home, even easier to have stayed in bed. I had been groveling waves under thigh high since Tuesday and truth be told have not surfed anything all that great in a while with not much in the forecast. Quiting for some is easy, for me it is not imaginable. Out I paddled in this slop that even as a grom I would have questioned surfing. At forty years old my knees hurt, my back was sore, my left shoulder had been giving me trouble after sleeping on it wrong a week ago, motivation was lacking. There I was out there, where I managed to make a few turns and even stuck two small airs.
So far with the exception of one really terrible session at Rincon, where I was barely able to grovel five waves down the point from low Indicator to River Mouth, I have had 243 productive surfs, meaning I have had at least a few rides that I felt to have surfed competently and rendered a fun ride. On the whole I have been pleasantly surprised with the array of surf I have gotten to experience on days that I would have normally been lazy and not even bothered. Also I have noticed that we tend to make lots of excuses why we cannot do something. I know I personally always had some reason or another for not surfing, whether I was too tired or hung over. I had to work. Other times I got discouraged cause of a short time window. Really these were all excuses. All I had to do was re-align my life around surfing, keep an open mind and so far I have been unstopable.
My wife thinks I should learn something from this crazy endeavor. I suppose when one goes to great lengths to accomplish a difficult goal it is only natural that he has come to a sort of revalation. Here a few thoughts I have come up with while on this surfing journey. The only thing standing in the way of reaching your goals in this life is you. With enough grit and determination anything for anyone is possible. Of course these are things that I have always believed in. I need to dig deeper. When I started this 365 day surf run I was hoping I think to gain a little stock on my life. There have been so many chapters, completely different lives even that I have lived. A common theme in my life has always been just when I start getting comfortable something major happens that throws everything for a curve ball and forces a hard reset.
That is where I have been left as a result of Covid, in a deep reset. Obviously (once again not putting anyone down) I do not plan on finishing up the remainder of my professional career life at the Post Office. Then again I am also not sure how I feel about getting back into the culinary profession as well. Covid changed the game and the players. I don’t know if I have enough love and drive for that profession to start from the ground up again. I already have three times in my life as a chef. climbing that ladder is a young mans game, which I am not anymore. I want to persue my surfboard business, Clarks Surfboards. It goes with out saying my love of and commitment to surfing runs deep and strong. How far can I take it? How far am I willing to go? How great of a sacrafice am I willing to make? These are all very difficult questions with even more difficult answers.
As of press time here in the middle of August half way through my 365 days of surfing I am more lost then I was when I started. I am more confused, more overwhelmed and most days just feel completely beated by the world. I have become a bit of an introvert. People make me angry, sad and disparaged due to their day to day actions. Society has me bewildered. I feel like its hard for me to imagine a decent world again. At this point I am just waiting for the next catastrophe and the next till all out war breaks out followed by starvation and more war and more starvation, etc. Don’t worry for me, I will be fine. If you want to help out order a surfboard or at the very least a t-shirt. That would stoke me out. Or, you know what all jokes aside lets all be decent to each other. Lets live and let live. No more pointing fingers and blaming one group for the problems of anothers. If everyone just got their head out of their asses and started thinking for themselves and logically reasoning out the situation we are all in then we could all work together to elimate the common evil. Enough of that as well. It is not my responsibility to solve the world’s problems. I can’t even solve my own.
Enough rambling. There are still four months of consecutive surfing to go. Will I make my goal? Time will tell. You can follow along with my progress in the surflog portion of this blog. Use the menu bar to assist you. Follow my instagram, @lisantiruinedmylife for daily photos and videos from my surfing escapades. There are even fun little edits posted weekly on the Clarks surfboards YouTubeChannel. As for myself I will just keep on surfing and keep on keeping on. Maybe when I write my New Years blog in January 2022 I will have all sorts of crazy surf and life revalations alike for you. Thanks for your time. See you in the water.
Surfing Ruined My Life 