RIDING THE WAVES OF LIFE

Riding the Waves of Emotions & Life

Life is like the sea. Unpredictable. It throws up waves that can carry us or hit us when we least expect it. Sometimes it’s the wave of managing an illness in the body, living each day more as a question mark than most people ever have to. Sometimes it’s grief, from a life or a magical partnership cut short. Either way, we ride and hold on, because this is the way of life. Like the sea, it goes on. It will meet you with another wave, and we have to believe that we can meet it and ride it out.

Waves are our emotions. They’re also the things that catch us off guard, and both are true at the same time. The wave we feel building inside of us and the wave that slams into us from nowhere are made of the same water. We don’t always get to choose which one shows up.

What I do get to choose is how I respond, and that’s what lets me surf the highs and lows instead of getting pulled under by them. Staying afloat isn’t about calm water. It’s about believing I can stay on the wave rather than beneath it, even when the wave has other plans.

I keep my footing, however shaky, instead of curling up and waiting for the water to decide my fate for me. I ride with the people who love and support me, because we don’t have to surf a big set alone. I believe I can, not in a forced, chin-up way, but in the quieter way that just keeps me paddling back out.

The sea doesn’t stop making waves because we’d rather it didn’t. It just keeps going, wave after wave, and so do we. Some of us get more sets thrown at us than others. But the ones who stay afloat aren’t the ones who never fall. They’re the ones who know how to get back on the board.