The Good Out-Waves the Bad

It was like nothing I’d ever felt before. It was if a million tiny crabs were pinching at the back of my bare thighs. I sprinted towards the distant shore.

“Mom!” I screamed. “It hurts!”

I was always a little hesitant to get in the ocean. Don’t get me wrong, I loved the feeling of the waves hitting my skin, but the idea of all the fish that came with it? Not a big fan.

So, I’d stick myself in a polka dot inner tube and float on top of the big blue waves, forgetting all of the slimy sea creatures surrounding me.

I had gotten out for a second to ride a wave. A second. That was all it took.

I dashed towards the shore, tears streaming down my face.

“What happened?” “Are you okay?” “It hurts!” I wailed.

“Probably a jellyfish,” my uncle Scott, a Californian living in South Carolina said nonchalantly, as if this was an everyday occurrence.

Although almost impossible, the tears came down harder. I laid down face first on a striped towel, focusing on the frayed hem in an effort to stop the tears. My family stuck icy beer cans on the back of my legs, and squirted mass amounts of hand sanitizer all over my aching thighs that were tingling as if an electric current was passing through them.

The pain subdued after a while and I sat on a lawn chair, staring at the waves crashing along the shore. I dug my feet into the grainy sand, allowing it to enter every crack and crevice, and find its way under my nails.

“How will I go back in there?” I thought to myself.

“I can’t.”

A few days later I travelled back down to the beach with my family. I was met with the tempting smell of the salty air, but I did everything to try and avoid the water. Built a sandcastle with a moat to keep out the bad guys. Hunted for shells that were seemingly perfect. Read a book about a cheesy summer romance. I was in the middle of a book complete with everything you’d want in a teen fiction novel, when my mother appeared beside me.

“Are you going back in?”

I was about to laugh. Was she really asking me if I was going back in there? I was ready to say “no.” But then I looked out at the ocean.

I saw my aunt and my brother bouncing around with wide smiles on their faces. My dad and uncle standing shallow enough that they could safely drink their Coors Light, yet still feel the cool water against their legs.

And then I thought of myself in the ocean. All the times I’d pressed on my blue Speedo goggles so hard I thought my eyes were going to pop out, and dove in. All the times I’d spent trying to bodysurf the perfect wave and utterly failing. All the times I’d spent laughing and creating memories.

I couldn’t let one bad experience ruin one of my favourite things, especially when I had so many good memories associated with it.

Sometimes you have to ignore the fear and the terror in order to make memories and have fun.

I nodded, and my mother smiled.

I tentatively followed behind her as our proximity to the ocean lessened.

We arrived and I stared at the vast blue Atlantic in front of me. A wave formed and crashed at our feet.

I took it as a welcome, and jumped in.