Sitting on my board, I let my hands sway calmly in the water as I wait for the next set. From the horizon, huge glassy rolling hills come in with no end in sight. Each one gets bigger than the next until the last one of the set rolls in. It is frightening, but something makes me want to ride it. Hesitantly, I paddle toward the wave, and I look below me. Paddling on a five foot wave seems harmless until you look down. I feel like I am staring off the Empire State Building into oblivion. I stand up, free fall for a second, and then have the best ride of my life. For almost fifteen gratifying seconds, I was the happiest man alive with my friends cheering me on from their own boards.
When I was ten years old, I would sit on the beach and watch in awe at the as the surfers carried their surfboards toward the ocean, zipped up their wetsuits and challenged the rough surf for the perfect wave. My mom would nudge me to try the sport, but I thought I was too young and to be quite honest, I thought all surfers had the laid back surfer dude personality that I didn’t find appealing. Every day, I watched them surf, and every day I stood by and did nothing yet my desire to try the sport grew. This went on for a few years until I worked long enough to save for my first board. I was very uncertain at first, being a rookie amongst veterans, but each day I further progressed. I was a mixed bag of emotions when learning because sometimes I surfed well and other times I wanted to quit because of my poor performance. It wasn’t until I had the fifteen second ride that I knew