SUP and Giving Up
Last year, I bought a stand up paddle board.
This declaration purchase came after finishing my master’s degree and welcoming my third baby. It may have been driven more by an ideal—friends having an amazing time on serene lakes with their boards—and by my need to incorporate a practice that allowed me to pause more.
Because my first time on a board was anything but serene.
Expectation met reality that sunny afternoon with friends on the cold Deschutes River in Bend, Oregon. The reality was:
My anxiety on high alert, scared of falling into the water.
Trying not to get caught in a current (I’m exaggerating, but that’s how I felt—blame it on childhood trauma).
Just wanting an IPA.
Feeling the need to “go somewhere.”
I missed the whole point of leaning into a new practice, hanging out with friends and having fun.
But isn’t this typical? We worry about how we look to the outside world. We carry the weight of our own and society's expectations to prove ourselves. We feel we aren’t good enough because we haven't "hustled enough" to be where we "should be" at XX years old. Fill. In. The. ______.
But who determines whether you are “good enough,” and what if we focused on giving that up?
I love Lyndsay Rush’s poem, “I’m Giving Up For Lent.”
What would it feel like to give up
self-improvement
for forty days?
Would the tightness in our chests
throat, shoulders, and hips
ease as we contentedly took the easy way out?
Would capitalism crumble if we deleted our wish lists
and framed the before photo?
Sounds holy, if you ask me,
to be sold on life as-is
to just exist
with only this, only us
only what these two arms can hold
So in 2024, this beginner is beginning again! My beautiful board holds the moments where I struggle to balance and slowly standing up. Where I was self-conscious of paddling wrong (because you know, everyone is looking at you...not true!), my strokes are becoming more fluid. Where I was consistently focused on the board, I am taking in my surroundings. Because so much of life happens outside of our periphery.
Inspired by Lyndsay’s poem, here is my before photo and my manifesto—learning, falling, enjoying, practicing, loving, relaxing and carrying in my arms what is mine to carry. That is something I am sold on.
