When I was 18, I did a trip back to French Polynesia, where I was born.
I went alone, and had a couple of surfboards especially for this trip.
There’s a text-book right hand reef break that’s literally the kind of wave I would draw when I was young in the back of my school books.
I get there, and the next morning do the 2km paddle out to this wave that breaks on the outer reef.
On literally the first wave, I take off too far up the reef, bail and get pushed down into the reef. It wasn’t a hard hit, but enough for a few reef cuts that got me out of the water.
I paddled back in, bleeding, and nursed these cuts (and nursed my ego…)
From the beach, you could still look out and see this perfect wave reeling down the reef. Like a painting.
But these cuts were real. They were part of it.
Movement, business, relationships, all have these picture-perfect setups where sometimes, everything is falling into place.
But a lot of the times there are reef cuts, heavy currents and beat-downs.
The thing is, one doesn’t exist without the other. The highlight reels we often see in the culture can sit on top of years of time, effort and work.
All we can do then is nurse the cuts, learn the lesson and figure out how to get back in the water while we still can.
