This Is Not A Mid-Life Crisis
There are three moments I look forward to each day.
The first is waking up — and long may I keep doing that. I’m lucky. I have a beautiful wife, a son we thought we might never have, I enjoy my job, I never go hungry and I have more than I need in the way of possessions. No matter how shitty a night’s sleep I get, I usually wake up glad to be me. Yes, I have the occasional yearning, but I refuse to join the moronic pursuit of happiness that consumes modern culture. Contentment is a better goal. It’s not beholden to the vagaries of emotion; you can make a rational decision to be content. And I make that choice.
The second is when our son, Wheeler, goes to bed. Don’t get me wrong, I love him. I love just about every thing he does and every word that comes out of his mouth. Even when he’s being a cheeky little arsehole and I’m yelling at him, I can’t help appreciating his four-year-old logic. But, I also love seeing him tired out from the days activities, reading him off to sleep, giving him a kiss, wishing him sweet dreams and going to spend some couch time with his Mum.
The third is entering the surf.
There were a few raised eyebrows when I started getting up at 5.30am, and it surprised me initially, too. I still cop the occasional ribbing when I’m caught looking at surfboards on ebay or checking the surf forecast but the initial weirdness is fading into normality. And despite the teasing, my wife has been as supportive as you can expect for someone being regularly woken before sunrise. We’ve been married ten years, and even before that, she’d never known me to surf. Dawn patrol was never part of the deal.
I suspect at first she thought I was having a mid-life crisis. Last December I bought a surfboard. A month later a skateboard. I can understand how it may have seemed a little strange, perhaps a little foolish. I certainly felt like a goddamn fool the first time I climbed on to either of them. But I had to do something. I’ve known for a few years that I was getting unhealthy, and if I want to keep enjoying moments one and and two listed above, I need to exercise.
My problem has always been that I don’t like any of the things people usually do when they want exercise. I walk quite a bit, but it never really feels like exercise. I’m a daydreamer, too, so no matter how hard I try, a brisk pace always slows to a thoughtful saunter. I don’t like jogging, never have. It makes no sense to me. As Yoda might say: walk or run, there is no jog. I never fancied myself a cyclist, either.
The one thing I was certain I wasn’t doing was joining a gym. Other people who’d started exercising were parroting on about how good the gym was. “It’s awesome, you get on the cross trainer and you can watch TV while you work out”. Indulge me here for a moment — why drag your arse off the couch where you were sitting watching TV to go to the gym and watch TV? What is the goal? You want to stay fit so you can live a longer life and watch more TV? FUCK OFF. I’m not going to a fucking gym.
The reason I started surfing and skating again was because I had to do something and they were things I did when I was a kid. Not out of nostalgia or any romantic connection to my youth; it was familiarity. I needed to exercise and I went with what I knew.
The funny thing is, now it’s important.
It’s going on four months, and I’ve surfed just about every morning. Occasionally, it’s a bit of a disappointment — if the surf is mush, or I fall off too many — and there’s been a few days I just couldn’t go. But the disappointing days come fewer than the good ones, the ones where I catch a wave I smile about for the day’s shorebound remainder.
Then there are the sunrises, the quiet knowing nods from other surfers, the thoughts of how far the swell has travelled and from where, the dolphins that swim by most mornings, the kids out learning with their parents and the memories of my father teaching me, the sound of the water and the millions of different shapes it makes. I drive home with the window down, the breeze drying my skin and I walk in the back door of my house to kisses and coffee and questions about how the surf was.
Surfing is more than just exercise for me now. Every morning, it’s an experience. It’s a connection to nature, and family, and friends and it makes the whole world bigger and better.
You don’t get that with a gym membership.
