Soul Surfer

I'm a coward. Always have been. Probably always will be. Let me tell you why.

I try to do one thing everyday that scares me. I could cheat and say that I succeed in this because I drive everyday, and driving scares the shivers out of me! But since it is such a routine and necessary task, I pretend it doesn't scare me as much as it does, so I don't count it since it is a (mostly) repressed fear.

But that's neither here nor there. The point is, I'm a coward because today, I failed to do anything that scared me. Yesterday, I saw the new Twilight movie, but before that? I can't remember the last thing I did that scared me. It certainly wasn't recent. Living in a foreign country scared me every day for four months, but that was a year and half ago. Skydiving was moderately nerve wracking too, but again, not recent enough to negate my feelings of cowardice.

So I started thinking about what I could do to shake this adrenal complacency. And then I remembered the single most frightening activity I have ever engaged in.

Surfing.

Now, the term "surfing", as it is used here, should be understood as more of an attempt than the actual act of surfing as it is known to most people. Flailing around in the ocean with a piece of fiberglass is a more accurate description of what I was doing, but for all intents and purposes, and for a more streamlined blogging experience, I shall refer to it henceforth as merely "surfing". Thank you for your cooperation.

So you may be asking, what's so scary about surfing? Well. What's NOT scary about surfing? Being in the ocean, drifting on a barely buoyant man made object, with no knowledge of what is lurking below you...(I have an idea: see photo at right.) Could there be anything as petrifying? Well, yes. Namely, the thought of the weight of a deadly wave engulfing your helpless body and then entangling you within itself only for you to be turbulently whipped around underwater (where, if I may remind you, people can't breathe), from whence you MIGHT resurface unscathed but you MIGHT drown or suffocate or get hit on the head with your board, your unconscious body lost amidst the bleakness of the sea only to be discovered years later by a pirate or a mermaid or a disgruntled native after having washed up on a deserted island miles from where you started.

Two of the top five scariest things to me: sharks and waves. Even the waves in my hair can't compete with the inherent terrifying nature of ocean waves. I used to have a collage of wave pictures that I made as my computer desktop just to remind me of the crushing powerful reality of the ocean. Sharks + waves = surfing. Needless to say, this water sport is, by nature, a recipe for a torturous demise. You could quite literally die at any moment. While this is naturally true of ANYone at ANY given moment, when you're in the ocean, you could quite literally die a very painful death at any given moment. And nothing is scarier to me than that. Nothing. Though driving does come in at a close second. If driving took place in the sea, I'm sure I'd hate it even more. (Now that I think of it, I guess there is such a thing as water driving. I'm pretty sure normal people refer to it as "boating". I shall promptly add this to my list of things to do when I'm sick of feeling like a coward.)

So, I drive to serve the practical purpose of getting from Point A to Point B. More often than not, it is to get to work, which I need to do to survive. But surfing is much different because it is purely a choice! And an unnecessary one at that! In fact, it's entirely designed for entertainment purposes! How strange and wonderful.

If any part of me is going to die on my watch, it will be the cowardly part. Tomorrow, I'm signing up for another surfing class.

Now if I can just get myself back into the water...