Day 38

I found it increasingly difficult to stick to any food rules. I frequently couldn’t read the menus at restaurants, if there was even a menu or a restaurant at all. Most of the time, the only food options outside of a restaurant came from corner stores filled with nothing but beer, soda, chips, cookies and candy. Little by little, I yielded control. Most of the places I surfed were incredibly remote, so I was lucky if there was a restaurant or a store at all. Surfing was the priority. Finding good waves meant eating whatever was available, so that is what I did.

Each morning I walked ten minutes to the only store.  I bought a sope´, made of bread (yes, with gluten), beans and queso fresco (yes, with dairy), as well as a cappuccino from the machine (yes, with corn syrup and hydrogenated oil). I would surf a few hours and then buy a snack from a kid selling something on the beach; a fried banana with caramel, a sweet bread, or a fruit juice. Then I’d nap, and eventually buy an unknown dish at a restaurant, do some yoga and nap some more, surf some more, buy more mystery food and go to bed.

After a week of staying in the fishbones cabaña, I discovered a slight upgrade a few hundred yards up the beach. Several other surfers were staying in the neighboring cabañas and, once again, as the only female around, I was quite popular. I had instant friends. There were morning surf sessions together, afternoon story swapping and evening bonfires where someone would pull out a guitar, and the drunker people would have a sing along while the more sober of us laughed our butts off. The only problem with my new cabaña was that it wasn’t entirely watertight, and the rainy season was just getting started.

I had a fitful night as the thatched roof leaked into my cabaña. I got up twice to push my bed to avoid the drips, but it didn’t seem to help. The entire roof needed replacing. The next morning, the waves were complete crap from the storm the night before, but we were all chomping at the bit to surf. After all, that’s why were were there, putting up with the mosquito bites and soggy beds. We stood in a light rain, watching the waves, looking for anything that looked rideable. Not only did the ocean look angry, with choppy peaks popping up all over the place, it also looked powerful. The waves were big and messy.  My two new friends, both male, each of them a sponsored surfer, seemed to spot something worth paddling out for. I told them I would stay back and do yoga under a palm tree. If I saw them get two good waves I would join them.

What I failed to consider was that, being professional surfers, my friends could make any conditions look fun. The waves were breaking a long way off shore, and I kept seeing specks pop up on massive wind chops, throwing some huge aerial moves. They looked like they were having the time of their lives. After about thirty minutes, it felt like my gills were drying up. I was hungry in my bones for some waves. Or maybe I was hungry to prove I could keep up with the boys. Growing up snowboarding with my brothers, in a culture that taught women came second, I had learned to prove my worthiness by keeping up with the boys in all ways, especially athletically. I was going to go surfing! I grabbed my board and headed for the beach.

I noticed a rip flowing out next to a jetty, and assumed it would be the quickest way to get out to the break because the current would take me in the direction I wanted to go. The guys were three hundred yards to my left. I decided to let the rip take me out to the unbroken water, then paddle towards my friends in an “L” shape. When I entered the water, the wind blew spray in my face and the surface was bumpy, smacking me all over the place as I tried to stay on top of my surfboard. I looked toward my friends but couldn’t see them over the surface chop. After paddling what seemed like only a few minutes, I noticed the rip was moving me very quickly. Too quickly. I was already past the jetty, which was supposed to be to my right but now was to my left. In fact, I wasn’t sure where I was. I sat up on my board to get my bearings. I looked to my left, and didn’t see my friends, I looked to my right, and didn’t see the jetty, I turned around. The beach was half a mile away. I fixed my eyes on a brightly colored building on the beach. It seemed to be floating away from me, like a cloud drifting through the sky. But buildings don’t drift, surfers do.

Panic seized my body. My stomach twisted, as if large hands were wringing it dry. I sat motionless on my board, but the current was still dragging me at double digit speeds out to sea. I took a deep breath and scanned the surface texture of the water, trying to ascertain the direction in which the rip was moving. I made my best guess, based on my experience watching rip currents. I set the nose of my board perpendicular to the direction I estimated the rip, and began to paddle. On that day, The Voice sounded like a middle school girl, texting her frenemy about stealing her boyfriend:

You stupid bitch. What the hell were you thinking! You are going to die. This is how it ends. Congratulations, you idiot, you just committed suicide.

My shoulders were burning, my heart rate skyrocketing and my breathing erratic. I was crying and it seemed impossible to get a deep breath or a steady stroke through my tears.

“Melanie, get a hold of yourself!” I commanded inner me. “You can panic when you get to the beach.” Survival instinct shut down my tears.

One. Two. One. Two. One. Two. I counted my strokes and matched them to my breath.

Five minutes into my sprint paddle, I looked up for a moment to realize that I had made only the slightest bit of forward progress. Another wave of panic. I fought the tears again. I dug my arms deeper into the water. Fifteen minutes. Again I dared to lift my chest. I wasn’t farther out, but I wasn’t sure if I was closer either.

“Move toward the discomfort!” I repeated my mantra, making an effort to enjoy the burning sensation in my muscles.

Twenty minutes. I was spent, my strength and stamina were gone. Is this how my story would end?

T Minus 4 years

I stood in the checkout line at a gas station in the middle of Nowhere, Texas. I had been sent there by my company on a last minute trip, to deal with an issue one of our clients was having with our product. It was 9:00 pm, and I had just traveled two time zones, having left another hotel room in another state at 6:00 am that morning. I was scheduled to be in another city and yet another time zone by the next day around the same time. I held a 5-hour energy shot, a large black coffee, a sugar free energy drink, a pack of sugar free gum, a pack of beef jerky and a Snickers bar. I avoided eye contact with the cashier, who would surely judge me for the chocolate bar. I handed over the money and cracked open the energy drink. I downed the entire can in the parking lot and ripped open the plastic on the Snickers bar. I sat in my drivers seat, chewing slowly, crunching and rolling the sweet goo around in my mouth. Before I swallowed I reached for the empty energy drink can, lined up the opening as if to drink from it, but instead spat all the calorie laden black sin out into the can before it had a chance to punish me with its calories. It didn’t count if you didn’t actually ingest it. I reached back for the candy bar and continued chewing and spitting until I had devoured the rest of the bar.

I pulled out of the parking lot and continued to load my body with enough chemicals to ensure I could make the rest of the three hour drive to my hotel without falling asleep at the wheel. As I drove, I entered the beef jerky into my calorie tracker app. Everything else was calorie free. The tracker said I was at 970 calories for the day and just 4 grams of carbohydrates. I felt pretty satisfied with those numbers, but hopeful the hotel had a gym that stayed open past 11:00 pm, just to get in a little extra cardio.

I checked into the hotel at 11:30 pm, and found out they had no gym. Everything in my body was screaming for rest. I downed the complimentary bottle of water in my room and felt nauseous. I thought about making myself throw up, but I knew there was nothing in my stomach and the nausea was from exhaustion rather than eating. Still, I couldn’t imagine going to bed without a workout. The Voice reminded me that skipping one workout is where it all starts, after all. So I put on my sneakers and headed for the stairwell of the eighteen storey hotel. Somehow, I would summon the strength to run all the stairs three times.

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Back in the water

I took one last paddle before allowing exhaustion to carry me to my watery fate. I simply could not take another stroke. My muscles were shutting down. My body wanted nothing more than to collapse.  Control. Some things are worth controlling.

Somehow, from a place deeper than the well of physical strength, a last burst of effort rose up. That effort felt more painful than anything, yet I embraced the pain, letting it fuel me.

You will paddle until you are safe. You’ve done harder things for stupider reasons. You have the strength, just summon it! I reminded myself I could feel any emotion I wanted, I could give up all control, once my feet hit the sand.

By the time I broke free of the rip, someone had spotted me with binoculars and a crowd had gathered on the jetty, completely helpless to do anything. They watched as my feet finally hit the sand. I stumbled onto the beach, ripped the leash off my ankle, dramatically flung my board at the ground and collapsed into a heaving heap of tears. Now, safely on firm ground, I allowed myself to experience the full weight of the emotions I had held at bay. And the tears felt good.

By the time I sat down for lunch, I felt alive like never before. I ordered something I couldn’t pronounce and sat back to wait. Meals in Mexican restaurants take a long time to come to the table. I was presented first with sliced cheese and tortilla chips, all of which I ate while I waited. Then, pickled spicy carrots and onions, which I also ate, until my mouth felt like it was on fire. Then my meal came, with breaded chicken, rice, salad, black beans and six or seven tortillas on the side. The waitress set everything in front of me and then apologized, left and came back with a side of mayo. I began slowly eating. I had never experienced such a lack of urgency to get food into my belly. I ate everything, down to the last tortilla. It was the same amount of calories that a typical binge would have been, but it was different. It took five times the amount of time to consume. It took willpower to keep eating rather than to stop. And I tasted every bite, rather than just the first two.

When the waitress returned to ask if I wanted more (like they always do), I consulted my Spanish dictionary, looking up how to say, “I ate too much.” I replied, “No, estoy bien, ya comi demasiado!” (Thanks, but I’ve already eaten too much!) A huge smile lit up her face and she shot back “Que Bueno!” (How good!)

How good indeed.

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*some names have been changed to protect privacy

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