The Latest From Germaine

Forgiveness Matters

I am horrible with grudges. Just horrible! I consider myself fairly tolerant, generally, but when I feel I have been crossed, it’s really hard for me to let it go. I will turn around and snap, given the least provocation/ reminder, and sometimes, it’s just easier for me to let the relationship go. Less stressful. I’ve lost friends over this, and as cold as it sounds, it doesn’t really bother me, because, to quote a very businesslike ex of mine – “you don’t need to make excuses for anybody. You do your thing. You give a man enough rope, let him hang himself.”

But on the weekend? Oh, the weekend. On the weekend, I got waves at Margaret River Main break, an amazingly consistent wave about three hours out of town. It wasn’t particularly big out, but about twenty minutes into the session, I got caught in the wrong place, at the wrong time. I was testing a new (freakishly buoyant) mini-malibu, that I couldn’t duck dive, and somehow, after copping a couple of set waves on the head, I found myself being dragged across the reef on my butt, praying that I wouldn’t smack into any rocky outcrops.

I got out of there, and fast – almost ran across the rocks, paddled like crazy out of the way, and made it back out to the lineup, where my surf partner grinned – “saw you eat it, where’d you hit?” – and I was a little bit scared for the rest of the session.

It’s not the first time it’s happened. The bigger the day, the better it gets. I’ve come back in with my back and butt criss-crossed with blood, with blue shins, and broken fins. I’ve both lost and broken boards. I’m pretty sure I currently have a bit of reef stuck in my foot. It hurts. And even as I’m paddling out again, I know it will hurt, yet I keep going back.

It makes me wonder – why am I so willing, and so ready, to forgive a wave? It’s so elemental, and such a force of nature. I know how nasty she can be. I know sometimes she likes to trip me up and hold me down, and kick me in the butt. Yet, I choose to remember the best and most beautiful parts about any given break. The good days, the fun days, the days when it’s all green walls and good times, and it feels like she and I just might be in this for each other.

Which begs the question: Why don’t I do this with people? Why am I so quick to shut them down, cut them out? Why is it so much easier to remember the worst of them? The mistakes, the bad bits? The times where I got hurt?

Why am I focusing on a piece of reef stuck in my foot, instead of the years of joy between us?

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