Teenager Days

When I was 11 or so, I started at a new school and met Kevin, Jack, and Steve, who had foam boards, bikes, and were already surfing. The four of us lived in the same area and started riding to the beach whenever there were waves. We got wetsuits with beaver tails and were hooked. We’d ride the “mountain trail” at Fort Crocket (now the San Luis Hotel) in the coldest conditions, lock our bikes up at 53rd, surf till we couldn’t feel our feet, and barely make it back to our houses and hot showers.
We widened our net of surfers, and friends, but somewhere in there it became more about the ocean and the sport of surfing than about hanging out with friends. I found surfing alone had its own rewards you couldn’t find in groups. Teen problems, a messy parental divorce, family money issues, and everything else melted away when you were surfing glassy waves alone at sunset. More and more I found myself in the water with or without friends before school, at lunch, or between school and work. When I was finally old enough, I joined the Beach Patrol and started training in Lifesaving Sport in addition to surfing.
Many years later, after living in different places and doing a bunch of globetrotting, I started working as a full-time professional lifeguard/EMT/Peace Officer and administrator. The beach became something else. More complicated. The weight we all bear of all those millions of visitors can be heavy. Drownings are horrible, disruptive, and life altering to everyone connected to them. They happen to people who had a lot of living left to do. We lose really good guards sometimes afterwards and, worse than that, they can negatively impact good people’s psychological balance. But there are also other challenges like staff shortages or conflicts, anxiety that lack of understanding by decision makers of what we need can impair our ability to protect people, fear of our own people’s physical safety, etc.
And lately, all of us are facing additional serious stressors related to natural disasters, disease, racial/cultural/economic injustices, and absurd politics. And lets not leave out just moving around our life and dealing with people who are way more stressed and ready to pop than normal.
The struggle is to remain centered. To focus on the simple things that keep us operating closer to our best version of ourselves. Sleep, good diet, and a little exercise each day are the thing. Simple but hard to do when life is crazy.
And of course, pick that thing that brings you back to you, and don’t get too busy for that.
Even after surfing for 45 years and guarding for 37, every morning when I swim or paddle out into the Gulf, I feel that same magic I did when my friends and I waded out into the water with those beat up boards all those decades ago. And I come back to shore closer to that person I strive to be.