As I stare out at the endless blue of the pacific ocean, every shade of blue as far as the eye can see in front of me the wind catches my face. “Maybe just not today.” I think to myself. “The water is too cold. One of us will probably get stung. One of these waves is probably going to roll me until I lose both nose rings and swallow sand that I don’t spit out properly for hours.”
There are three types of waves that are all the same waves at the same time it just depends on where you are.
The manageable ones from the road, the bigger ones at the shoreline, and then the monsters while trying to get past the break. Then there is the temperature on your phone, the temperature when you first shuffle your feet in, and then the temperature when you dive into the first wave. With no wetsuit, I tend to just giggle uncontrollably as I try to adjust to the cold water.
“Maybe not today.” I think to myself over - farther and farther out into the water from the beach. Eventually, the moment of truth comes - the first wave hits, and in an instant, I can either dive in and swim out past the break or continue telling myself this isn’t happening so I don’t feel like I’m suffering.
“You have never been afraid to go very far out into the water. I love that about you. You are absolutely fearless when it comes to the most surprising things.” My husband says once we get far past the break. It’s a nice thing to say, as I have a panic attack at least once any time we drive anywhere because of roads and other drivers.
“My need to float and feel weightless with my feet off the ground far outweighs the common sense of fear just like it always has, I just found a context that is less likely to kill me.” I laugh at him.
It only takes about sixty seconds to adjust to the cold once I walk through the fear and accept the shock of the ocean. Nothing I tell myself I should be afraid of happens.
That deep out into the water like that - where all of the people in the distance look like tiny specks if I can see them at all - feels like peace, freedom, and being alive in the moment. We hold hands and splash around. We pray together and float, alive in the abundance of the biggest spirit on this planet that I can touch - the sea.
I changed my entire life fifteen times so I could live here by the water and sometimes it’s funny how long I will stand just at the edge and ask myself if I have the strength and stamina to walk forward into what is next. It is effortless to forget how far we have come once the space to look back is too much to consider.
This painting is a portrait of how only I can break through blocks that only I create. Every single thing that I want is on the other side of the fears and limitations that only I come up with and believe. Every time I get out past the break, where our feet will never touch - I am once again on the other side of that fear and in the lesson of how yes, I can, and yes, I am.
How far have you come to become you, here?
What are you
Walking through and to
where?
