SOMETHING GOOD IS HAPPENING

There was barely any waves, only fast moving lumps that when within 5 metres of the shore doubled in size and exploded on the hard sand. I watched young children come dawdling down the beach behind a surf school instructor, innocently unaware of the carnage that awaited them and thought to myself  “What is this instructor thinking, this shorey is going to annihilate them.” 

I remember a day from my childhood when the surf, in relation to our tiny bodies, was fairly large. There was a few of us nervously prepping for the challenge, psyched to give it a go. One of my friends was noticeably not sharing the same enthusiasm. His Dad was being quite forceful and pushy with the idea and eventually won the battle, convincing his son to give it a go like the rest of us. We started paddling out, we got smashed by a few whitewaters but made some decent ground, then a big set rolled in and we all copped it right on the head. We all got thrashed but my friend, who didn’t really want to come out in the first place copped it the worst. His board, which was a beaten, old, heavily glassed relic of a thing, was blasted from his hands and sent sky high. Like a honing missile locked onto the crown of his head, curled back on it self mid flight and boom, hit the mark! The nose of the board straight into his skull, splitting his scalp. Screams, blood and general panic.

He never surfed again. 

Until this morning, I honestly believed that the dad was responsible for the son never surfing again and if he hadn’t made him go out that day he might have continued. 

I told this story of my youth to Mia this morning when we where watching these kids ride lumps of ocean towards their inevitable demise.

Her response to it was, “sounds like that kid never really wanted to surf anyway, maybe that board to the head finally gave him the courage to tell his dad “NO” and he might have been genuinely happy with not surfing again.” 

For the first time since this situation occurred I saw it from a different perspective.

I realised that the information that I had received from the event, being, one bad experience can turn you (off) something good in life, was not the only way to see it. 

My personal love of surfing made this event seem like an absolute tragedy, but for my friend who quite possibly never loved it, it was liberation! He never had to endure another crappy surf experience again and could instead, pursue his true passions. 

“one bad experience can turn you (on) to something good in life”  

I knocked 2 teeth out of my face on a see-saw and never wasted my precious time on them again. If I hadn’t …. I probably wouldn’t have surfed as much. Now that would have been a tragedy. Thank you see-saw for knocking some sense into me!