Ever heard of the phrase “Don’t dream your life, but live your dream”? It’s a great phrase and I totally agree with the philosophy of it! The only problem with it for me turned out to be that dreams have this nasty quality about them… You know how when you dream about something and you are finally really going for it, your whole life evolves around it and you are really on this Yolo forevah mission? When every hand reaching your way is an arm you can pull yourself up on? Every opportunity, chance, pass, shot, fling: just there for you to grab? It’s the best feeling in the world when you actually even partly succeed in all of that. Because BEM there it is! It’s your dream: right there ready for you to do some serious dream living. The nasty part is that all this subsequently will only create MORE dreams. And the worst part is, the next will ALWAYS be even bigger than the last. So you can grab arms all you want, but it’s not really going to give you the grip you really need.
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Laughing And Smiling
From the plane I went to the train and from the train there was this curly haired surf dude that told me there where some great waves to gain. After shaking mister surf dudes hand, while introducing myself. I got into his car and I said: “Wow great car, I hope it doesn’t fall apart before we get there”. He laughed, but just kept driving and I felt so stupid insulting his car that I didn’t even dare to say anything else for the whole 1,5 hour drive to the surfcamp. The total silence was like a wall between us and while we drove longer and longer into the Portuguese landscape the wall got higher and higher, like it would never end. Until we just stopped. It was already dark outside when he got out of the car, popped open the trunk and reached for my bag. I got out too and my jaw just literally fell open. Never in my life had I seen so many stars in the sky and so much darkness around me. He looked at me and just laughed and smiled and gave me my bag.
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There Is A First Time For Everything
So last time I told you about my first time surfing. Now I’m going to tell you about my first time flying. I was 21 years old, about time I got my ass out of the discomfort of busses and other public transport. But my dreams of having a bit of space for my legs and having some sleep along the way were over pretty quickly. I was feeling sick from being so damn anxious, scared and exited at the same time. And I had no one to calm me down, or hold my hand, or talk some sense into me. The reason for this was that I had broken up with my first boyfriend. We had done EVERYTHING together for the last 4 years and I had decided it was time to do something on my own.
Pretty great decision when I was still snuggled up in bed with my laptop, dreaming about where I wanted to go. But now it was real. First thing in my mind when I arrived at the airport was: I have no idea how an airport works. So I acted like everyone else. Staring at signs and displays, but I didn’t see my flight anywhere and I had no clue on what the hell I should do with my luggage. So I asked the first person I saw who looked nice. This actually became my strategy for many trips to come: “while strongly believing in the kindness of all human beings, before you even give yourself the chance to freak out, just ask someone and everything will be fine”. And so it was.
Once I was in the air it was even more than fine. With all my fears and anxiety I was really surprised to discover I absolutely love flying. The whole concept of it is just amazing. A huge, heavy, peace of metal, with people in it, not touching anything but air, staying up there seemingly without any effort. It just blew my mind. And when I looked out the window I really couldn’t believe my eyes. I almost started believing in god when I saw the clouds just flowing beneath us. All of my nerves instantly turned into a feeling of ultimate happiness and excitement. And I hadn’t even arrived jet…..
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And So The Journey Begins
Zarautz Spain: my first attempts to surf where right here at this beach. I was 16, my sister and I were on a holyday there and thought surfing looked really cool. So we just wanted to give it a go. We booked a private lesson at a small local surf school. Like I told you before many things in life scared the shit out of me. So did surfing. I was a really bad swimmer and didn’t feel comfortable in the water at all. But when I finally got to stand up, even for only a few seconds, I was immediately hooked.
This holiday is where it all started for me. My parents split up a year before this trip and after a lot of fighting and being a very insecure and troubled teenager, this for me felt like the kind of freedom I had been looking for all along. I wouldn’t ever have dared to try surfing if I wouldn’t have had my big sister there to hold my hand. But that made the impact even bigger. I was completely overwhelmed by the feeling. That huge ocean, all these super cool looking surfers. And me out there trying to keep it together while I got washed and tumbled around.
For the next two summers I stayed at SAIKO surfcamp. I even dragged some friends from high school with me. They hated it, I loved it. They went shopping, I went surfing.
