9.4.2018
It feels like a mini hurricane right under my sternum. It creates a whirlpool of hot stinging energy. It picks me up, it moves me — to check my phone, to reach my hand into a bag of chips, to send a text, to check my email, and back to the kitchen. I try to control it — I go surf, I go shop, I go for a run, sometimes I even smoke or drink or have sex, but most of the time I eat.
The ocean has a rhythm. For the last several days, over a week, she has been quiet. She has been resting, storing up her strength. But the ocean also suffers from immense building of anxiety. She is about to unleash on us a swell of unprecedented length.
The surf report says starting two days from today we have swell coming our way for the next two weeks without a break. Typically that means several large/fun days and a few massive/scary days. Not this time. It is pure XXL surf heading our way.
And my body is wracked with anxiety.
Because I know there will be several days within my skill level, but my skill level is now high enough that those days could kill me. There will also be several days beyond my skill level, and then I will have to make the hard call to show respect and sit it out, which is almost as hard as entering.
I also know that if I leave Zicatela for part or all of this swell then I will score some of the best waves of my life at the point breaks down south. It will be far more suited to my skill level and far better conditions for working on technique. But there won’t be any stand up barrels, nor will there be any photos. I fucking love the photos.
So what will I do? Will I Stay and surf here and possibly get the one best wave of my life and the best photo of my life or will I go down south and get wave after wave of pure joy, without anyone to see?
Anxiety grips my chest.
Then there is the anxiety about leaving here. I love it here. And yet I’m bored. Europe awaits! New waves, French food, ancient cities, Paris, Madrid, Narare!
But cold water, cold nights and a strange people who I don’t know well. Then there is anxiety about money too. I’ll have to buy a wetsuit and some new warm clothes and accept the kindness of people opening their homes to me.
I’m scared to spend the money I have. The truth is I’m spending savings I didn’t want to spend. The truth is, I have a long term plan for money. But I need a plan for the next 12 months.
I need to work on surf technique. I need to spend a lot of time surfin medium waves. I need to earn a modest income and keep my expenses low. Oh the anxiety rages on and on!
But then we are only talking about one month, actually less. Take it easy Mela. It’s one month of your life. And you need a new wetsuit and some new clothes wouldn’t hurt since you’ve been living like a dirty hippy for months. We are not talking about a lot of money here. Maybe just go three weeks if that makes you feel better. Three weeks is nothing. I think you should do it. Experience it. What’s the worst case scenario? You get there, you are unhappy, you buy a ticket to leave early.
Oh I can feel the anxiety starting to release like a pressure value was just opened.
I just hit a point in my writing where I actually clicked over to Facebook. Why?
Stimulation.
You see, I can feel the anxiety has passed, like big time passed. The hurricane has been downgraded to a mild tropical storm. Everything is going to be okay. And so I went looking for the next hit of chemicals for my brain.
And this is how I know anxiety is not a bad thing, I actually crave it. I typed above, “The ocean also suffers from from immense building of anxiety” but I don’t think I choose the right word when I typed “suffers”. I don’t think anxiety has to indicate suffering.
Why do we love sad movies? Because we actually love to be sad. Sad is not bad.
When I found out my first boyfriend cheated on me, when I found porn on my first husband’s computer, when my second husband said he was withdrawn from me because I was overweight, I experienced pain that I didn’t know was within the capacity of humankind to experience. I didn’t know pain could go that deep, stretch so far into my soul, or pierce with so much weight.
And because of these experiences my capacity for joy has increased.
It is like we have just one container for emotions. This container gets stretched with each high or low experience. The higher the high or the lower the low the bigger the container becomes. If I experience euphoria, there is more space to experience massive sorrow. And likewise, if the rug is pulled out from under me the passing through this experience leaves room for a rush so high that no drug can compare.
Perhaps this is why drugs are so devastating. They create a large capacity to feel.
They stretch the container before we are really ready for it. They bring the high before we have become mature enough to accept the low.
Perhaps then the only cure for addiction is to to endure the painful premature stretching in the low times without jumping back to the substance to displace the powerful “bad” feeling with a powerful “good” one.
The reason I surf waves that many people would not enjoy is because of the high. Maybe the reason I can handle a high this high is because of the lows. The lows brought me to a place where I looked death in the face and invited it. The high of surfing a big wave is to look death in the face and defy it.
I’m still anxious, I’m anxious about Europe, about the upcoming swell, about money. I still don’t like the feeling. But it’s in a little different perspective in this moment as opposed to an hour ago when I first opened my computer to write. Writing has allowed a little of the anxiety to spill out so that now the container is not overflowing, now the anxiety fits and I can manage it.
I don’t actually need to do anything about this anxiety. In fact, I can kinda enjoy it. I can put on some music and let the tropical storm inside of me erupt into dancing, I can surf like a maniac, or I can just sit here and feel it. Anxiety is a feeling just like sadness or joy. It is indeed a friend and with practice I think I can learn to like it, really like it. Unless I want to shrink that feeling space in my soul, I think enjoying the lows as much as the highs is my only option.
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