on riding waves and rising above

Sept. 3, 2006

I am the type of person to get annoyed when people use metaphors excessively or in situations that are out ouf place. Fully aware of this, I apologize if this fits the mold.

Today I was out at Huntington Beach with Brittany and Cody, and it was wonderful. We dropped our stuff off and headed into the waves. We kept trying to get out past where the waves were breaking so we could ride the swells as they were on their way into the shore.

And it hit me tonight that that's what life is about.

Living life isn't about riding waves the way you plan to. Life is about working hard to get to where you want to be; you won't always get there, and most of your time and energy will be spent in the journey. Sometimes it will be easy to just float past things and let things go and other times you'll get knocked over and knocked down and get metaphorical saltwater in your nose. Sometimes it gets hard to fight all the nothingness that crashes in on us, and we give up, and we lose hope, and we give in to the notion that we won't ever be where we need to be. And the harder we fight it, the more endless we feel.

But there is hope.

And when you can't win over a wave by hiding beneath it or fighting it head on... sometimes you just have to take what you get. And you might get pushed back, and ripped apart. But there is beauty in the fleeting moments that we can rise above the swells to see the bigger picture. There is peace in those few seconds when we almost get swept away by a massive wave... but live to ride the crest of it and know its power.

It is only when we have been crushed and knocked down that we begin to realize how beautiful it is to finally defeat that which often defeats us.

And we will overcome, after all, in the end.

I know where I'm going.