Flat Spells & Broken Hearts

Countless books and films feature a protagonist on her way to the beach to cure a broken heart. I’m a bit of a cynic, so I never really believed in any of these stories until I had one to call my own.

It was Summer 2020. My boyfriend had been storing his beloved surfboard collection at my apartment and when he moved out, he left one behind. A blue mini mal, 7’8, with a pretty shape that flowed perfectly into a rounded pin tail. When I asked him to collect it, he refused.

 ‘Keep it’ he told me. ‘It’s going to help you.’

After several weeks of tears and excuses not to leave my bed, I found myself ready to get out of the break-up-funk. That morning I jumped in the car and with no real idea of where I was headed, I ended up at the ocean. I still remember paddling fiercely through the whitewash on my blue board that day, feeling both unstoppable and insignificant all at the same time.

It didn’t take me long to fall back into the rhythm of the water; learning how the waves worked, where to position myself, how to react faster. I was reading the elements, listening to my instincts. And in those blissful, sun-filled hours I forgot all about my sadness.

 I spent so much beautiful time during the weeks that followed chasing the surf up and down the East Coast; reconnecting to the earth, finding quiet space to reflect, being reminded that change is constant. I felt so intensely pulled towards the vastness of the blue and that endless horizon line where somehow fears and time didn’t exist and my breath seemed to go on forever. Being in the water imposed a rhythm upon everything in me that was bewildered and confused.

 I learned the ocean has the power to do that, to uplift and to heal. It’s like a rejuvenation of the soul, a press of the reset button, an upwelling of love from within.

One flat day, many months later, I sat and watched a boy enjoying his old finless surfboard as his dad pushed him into the ripples. He had a toothy smile, and he rode the whitewash all the way to the shore even when his shorts fell off. His happiness was in the form of waves that were too small for most, and I was reminded once more that people live life from all different perspectives. And I thought that maybe what really matters most is that we just do what we can to keep ourselves full and breathing, through all of the flat spells and the broken hearts.