What Surfing Taught Me
I never thought I would write about surfing.
My love for it came the way the best things do, unexpectedly, when I wasn’t looking.
I’ve always loved the ocean, but loving something and being near it are not the same thing.
Years ago, in Brazil, I was swimming alone, pretending to be a mermaid, when I felt the current pulling. I swam harder. And harder. And realized I wasn’t moving at all.
Panic came slowly. Then all at once.
Luckily, someone noticed. A lifeguard came.
That was the first time I felt unsafe in the ocean. After that, something shifted. I still loved the ocean, but it wasn’t unconditional anymore. I lost my naivety the way lovers do, the first time they fall in love.
I saw something new. My love for the ocean didn’t make it safe. The ocean is beautiful, but it has rough edges. It is generous, but it does not negotiate.
A few years later, this September, I was in Florida for a friend’s wedding.
Early morning. I had just finished lifting.
My best friend and I went for a swim. The current picked up again. I felt the fatigue first. Then the distance. We were drifting. About a hundred feet from shore. No one visible. This time, before panic could take over, I told myself to stay calm. I swam parallel to shore. Underwater. Different strokes. No movement.
“I’m scared,” I told her.
“Me too,” she said. “But it’s going to be okay. Let’s keep trying.”
We tried for five more minutes. I knew then I had maybe ten minutes of energy left before my body would give out. And then it hit me. It was my mom’s birthday. I could leave this planet any day.
Just not today.
I started screaming. “Help!”
Waving.
Hoping someone would see us before my muscles gave out.
We were saved. Again.
That day reminded me of something I didn’t fully understand before.
The ocean, just like me, is lovable. Just not to be messed with.
So no, surfing was not a side quest I had planned for 2026. And yet, somehow, I found myself in a surf town off the coast of Costa Rica. And in the middle of fear, I did something.
I said yes.
I signed up for a lesson.
Why? Curiosity.
I was surrounded by people who loved to surf, who respected the ocean, who read her moods instead of fighting them, and I couldn’t sit still on the shore pretending I wasn’t just a little bit intrigued.
Surfing is humbling in a way that strips you clean. You are not in control. You are in a relationship. You have to listen to the wind, to the water, to timing.
One second too early and you miss the wave. One second too late and you are thrown.
Everything in life is about timing.
I have always believed that. Surfing made me feel it.
It required everything I had been building. Endurance. Strength. Resilience to failure. Trust in myself. And strangely, I didn’t mind being humbled by the ocean for two hours every day.
Surfing made me sit in the space between fear and desire. Every wave asked.
Are you going, or are you staying?
There is no guarantee. Just timing. And your willingness to trust yourself inside it. Somewhere between fear and curiosity, I fell in love. And somewhere between falling off waves and paddling back out, I came back to myself.
Love,
Pri
my first surf… captured ;)
