An Ode to Winter 17/18-Spring 18

My senior year started in August and by my senior year, I was over school and I basically had a mission to make it the best year of my life after coming off of the worst year of my life. And when I say "of my life" I mean of my life.

I had just turned 17 at the start of the school year and I wanted 2017/2018 to be the sweetest year of them all; filled with all the shit you do when you're a senior in high school at 17. Basically I wanted to surf, live for the weekends, take advantage of every second of every day possible, and P A R T Y H A R D. I had a lot to look forward to; new adventures with friends, tons of traveling, and *hopefully* little to no homework. I had a job at the time that I wasn't super stoked about but it was a job and money was coming in every two weeks so I was happy. I was working a lot though. In between the times when I wasn't working, it was hectic and a blast. It was filled with heatwaves and football games on Fridays with my friends.

I also met someone. Someone I didn't expect. Someone who had lived so physically close to me, but whom I didn't know after all of these years of being neighbors. I got to know him during the fall when we would have time between classes and school and work and friends and life. But we got to know each other and I fell hard quick; I'm not gonna lie or try to pretend to play cool.

Around October, I had an inkling that I wasn't happy with my job. I didn't really like it nor was I great at it. It didn't last long. I was fired by November. Fall had gone by too fast and I longed for those September surf days that I didn't get but little did I know that winter would change everything.

I gave up on trying to find a job. I was tired of working. I didn't want to go to school and work my senior year. I just wanted to have fun, surf my ass off, and live out all of my days home because I knew this was going to be the year with the same-same. This was going to be the year that everything changed. I knew that things were changing but I didn't know how or why or what. I just didn't know where I wanted to go but at the very least, that I wanted to go. I had an itch to leave the nest. It didn't shake. But for now, I was filling out college apps. And in between those in-betweens, I was living for the weekend. Actually, I was living for every day, every moment, every night until dawn when I had to crawl to school; no matter what shape I was in. It was great. I started seeing him more and more... and more. We took our time to know each other but it felt like we had known each other our entire lives. It felt right. I knew I had to pull the trigger soon but I was still shy about it. I didn't want it to be awkward. He was older and he had figured out I was 17 instead of 20. But I couldn't shake that feeling. It bugged me everyday.

Finally, on Christmas Eve eve, when we both had just come back from seeing our families, we both were craving the ocean. We needed a surf. I had been talking to him for months now and there had been so many little moments where I could have taken things a step further but I didn't because I was terrified. He was older and I didn't want to push things. But I also wanted to finally surf with him. We had been saying so for months and I finally wanted to actually do something with him. He said yes.

As tired as we both were, we crawled down to the beach and did it. And all I remember was how much I laughed my ass off. How cold it was in the morning, but how clear the day was. The sun hit me later in the afternoon and I walked away with some sun on my face. I remember how lightheaded I was by the end of the day. How much my abs and cheeks hurt because I had been laughing for 6 hours straight. My hands were shaking not because it was cold...I was so nervous but happy. Purely happy. My soul hadn't felt that way in a long time. The surf was flat—SOO FLAT—but we made the best of it. And it was the best of times. We spent six hours or so out in the water, and then went for tacos because we hadn't eaten all day. We ran around town; going beach hopping and watching the sun go down with each mile that we crawled up the coast. Then we basically spent the rest of the night together skating around, talking. The stuff that feels like a lost art. We had to call it a night. It was late. He was tired and I knew that. I felt like a jerk for keeping him up that late. But it was Christmas Eve, and tomorrow was a day left for family and presents. I left smiling. Inside and out, my body radiated love again. I hadn't felt that kind of happiness and joy in a long time. It was refreshing to not feelanything or thinkabout anything for once except to be present in the moment.

From that day in December, all throughout winter, every day was like that. Everything in my life had changed for the better. The days were worth living for because I knew that I would be living everyday like it was my last; filled with adventures and late night rides and tons and tons of beautiful beautiful surf days. The surf could be shitty, but we would always have the best of times. Always. No matter what we did, it was always the best of times. Because of him, I was tan and it was the middle of winter; weekends were filled with biking, hiking, coffee stops, more surfing, work visits, parties, and ignoring school—living life. I was traveling and seeing my friends all of the time. I had a car and I knew people. Once that happened, my world seemed to open up. I failed in school, but I don't regret anything. I wouldn't have traded those times for anything. I needed that part of my life and I needed memories. He made it happen. Winter 17/18 was the best winter of them all.

When I tore my ACL, that's when things started to change. I couldn't do as much. I was laid up a lot. Surf days turned to Netflix nights. He started working more because he had to save to move in the fall for uni. I was buckling down on college decisions. I guess it was time to start getting serious. I had been ignoring everything in life except my social life for the last half year. I got surgery. It was bad and then I got better. But things were still changing; rapidly, and without fault. I had felt that this year would be the year of change, and it had proved to be in the best of ways, but there was this feeling of a bad kind of change coming on that felt like chaos. It was coming on quick and I could feel it.

On that truth-exposing day in April, "the weekend" didn't have the same meaning. They weren't the same. Everything changed. The weekends weren't what I lived for anymore. That's when chaos started. Not all of that time of my life was bad but not all of it was good. It was a time of healing physically and mentally and buckling down for the future days where I would have to be an adult. We stopped seeing each other even though we were neighbors. I tried my hardest not to see him. Talk to him. I was too hurt and pissed and confused. I finished up high school and I was pretty much gone all summer long. This summer was also the summer of change. It's been great, but it's been emotionally hard.

This is just an article about an ode to the good times. An ode to times that feel so far away now. Even though he is my ex, the days of Winter 17/18-Spring 18 were the best times of my life. He made me expand my world. Get out there. Live for the day and make the days live for you. He made me become a better friend for my friends. I hustled hard to hang with them and have the best social life I could after I met him and saw how tight he was with his friends. I realized through him that I needed to live and savor every day because soon, the days would be different. He made me get out there and have fun because, god damn it, it was my senior year and I deserved to have a little fun after hustling my ass off in high school. Even though he's my ex, and I don't know what to do with that, he gave me a good period of my life. He made my last year home great. We did more in those months than I had done in the last two years, and I have to tip my hat off to that fact and to him for making it happen. He doesn't love me nor loved me like I loved him, and his friends and family may have given shit to him for dating me, but as far as I go; I may hate him 99.99 percent of the time. But the .001 percent... those are the ones I thank some higher power for.

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I'm trying to enlighten myself everyday through writing. Help me sort through these thoughts. Gain a new perspective. I hope maybe this will help me.

xx