Based on true events—"The Longest Beginner Journey Ever" by Lauren Frazer

This is a love story and hopefully, one that all my fellow wahines can appreciate. 

My whole life, I have always wanted to learn how to surf. I always wanted to be a surfer, I told people. And years went by. 

At 43, I decided it was time to belly up to the bar. I signed up for a week-long intro to surfing class in Scarborough, Maine (about 1.5 hours from where I live in New Hampshire) for June. I was nervous. I was a bloated, middle-aged woman who was egregiously out of shape. I had no business being there. They would be young. I would be old and fumbling. 

I went. And while I felt both of those things to their fullest, it was exhilarating, incredible that first day even in unfair stormy conditions…the swell tossed us back and forth and had its way with us. Dragging myself out of the surf hours later, sore in so many new places, I was grinning ear to ear like an idiot. I felt gloriously high. My love story had begun.

I never stood up that day. I won my first surf buddy though, bought a foamie, and met her most days that summer, trying to find my footing, agility to bend and rise quickly, trying to just catch a wave, stand up, not get pummeled. 

But, greedily, I wanted it all at once, and though there were plenty who could get up and ride whitewater and green that week, that summer as beginners; that would not be my story. 

As summer became fall and at the time, prohibitive New England winter, my buddy and I decided we couldn’t wait six months to surf again. In February, we went to a surf camp in Costa Rica. I rode a bunch of waves…on my stomach. I got pushed the wrong way into a wave. I got a board to head and a bragging-rights shiner. It was fricking awesome. At week’s end, I was the only one still unable to get up confidently. At the closing ceremony, I admit it: I cried. I felt like a failure. What was wrong with me?

I was all hesitation. If I wasn’t hesitating on trying to catch the wave, looking down the steep face of it and begging off, I was hesitating to throw my weight up and hail mary my feet to ground out a balanced stance. I didn’t trust myself, my body. It was too awkward, full, stiff, breakable like glass. I pictured getting thrown in the wash cycle, pummeled by the weight of it, suffocated for 5,6,7,8 endless seconds counting underwater (as I had before), sheared or gouged by the hard plastic fins, smacked into an errant sharp rock on the sandy floor. 

But we returned and started back at the Maine break that June. We took one-on-one classes: she was progressing; I was still where I had always been— fearful and woefully unchanged. We started meeting at a couple other breaks. New buddies joined. There was a whole community of women surfers to learn with. It felt so good. Still, I begged off waves…I hesitated and didn’t adjust for lower or bigger wave energy. I let wave after wave pass me by while I second-guessed out back in the lineup.

I felt defeated, even though I just wasn’t trying to advance. The sideways, uncomfortable looks I got…girl, what are you still doing out here? Everyone was advancing except for me. They were trading up for the real boards, taking bigger waves at 3, 4ft, even riding the face sideways. They had all started merely months ago. What was I still doing out here?

But I couldn’t stop. I just couldn’t. It was where I was my happiest, and I would keep coming back with my board for the rest of my life, even if I never progressed, even if it broke my heart. 

And that’s when I decided something had to change. It had stopped being fun. I was being discounted at the break, but also, most importantly by myself. Every session always felt so pivotal: failure or success: the former always won. It wasn’t fair. The vibe out there was bad for my headspace and defeating me on every wave.

I needed kind people to surf with, to accept me as the terrible, vulnerable surfer I was. I needed to expand my surf network. So I joined an online group, and reached out of my comfort zone to find closer breaks. I didn’t want to surf alone.

Awkwardly: Hi. I am beginner surfer looking for a surf buddy in the mornings during the week NH or Southern Maine breaks. I can’t seem to progress (I wanted to state right upfront that I was terrible in case they wanted someone at their level. I couldn’t face more disdain or uncomfortable pity).

I’m a first-light girl and I’m out most mornings. Let’s meet!

And that was that. She was a first-light surfer. She surfed through the winter, which at the time, was both mesmerizing and impossible to me. Maine water gets to be at its coldest about 35 degrees F, and the air temp can be many degrees negative. 

She was welcoming and accepted me as I was…a terrible surfer who couldn’t advance and appreciated my fear, but also believed in me, that I would and could get it. We were fast friends in a matter of mere sessions. She would end up being one of the best people I had met my entire life: kind, kickass, inspirational, my surf hero.

We surfed into fall. When November hit, she was still surfing, so why couldn’t I? I switched into a hooded suit, bought the booties, the gloves she recommended. I was learning so much about the sport, about myself. It was December and then, January, February, March. My seasonal depression never reared its head, and it used to be deep, abysmal. Most mornings it was dark, in the teens/20s, and we slipped happily on pools of ice on the sand, surveying the lonely horizon for the best break. She respected my limitations but also knew how to gently push when I needed it.

Tina is one of my very best friends, and I am not sure she even knows how transformative she has been to my life, my self-confidence, my journey to self-forgiveness. She brought me back from a dark place I had fallen into, that I would never learn to do the one thing I loved the most. I tear up even writing this now. Have I stood up and ridden waves since then? Yes. Am I consistent? No. Is my pop-up refined and my timing dead-on? No. Definitely not. But do I have fun every fricking time I get out there? Do I ever regret getting up before dawn, driving an hour to the break, and fighting all the neoprene on in bitter temps? Not one day. 

I often stay in much longer than maybe I should. The water right now is 38F. Was that 20 minutes? Three hours? I don’t wear a watch. And when I finally do get out, unstrap the velcro on the leash after countless “one more waves”, my muscles finally protesting as I trek back across the empty beach, I am warm with adrenaline, fully lit-up, grinning like an idiot, and so full of promise.