The first time I read those 3 letters, I was like, those damned kids and their new fangled abbreviations for everything.  So I sat about trying to make sense of what the hell it could possibly mean before resigning myself to Overlord Google and getting to the bottom of it.

 

Long. Term. Relationship.

 

And i got to thinking, what’s my longest relationship? Probably like, my family. Or solid foods.  But one of the most meaningful has definitely been my relationship with the ocean.

 

It seems impossible to think there are people who haven’t seen the ocean, ever. Since I was a child, the beach has been such a big part of my life that it’s impossible for me to disentangle it from my being.

 

I found myself walking the beach the other day, from Venice to the Santa Monica Pier,watching the Sandpipers race the waves, seeing the gulls meet on the sand, and the other various normal beach activities. Kids building sand castles,  people doing yoga, girls sunbathing, It was low tide and the wet sand was compacted and felt really good between my toes.

 

Here i’ve played beach volleyball, and done clean ups.  There I was rescued by a lifeguard during an undertow.  Here I sat and watched the waves, thinking about my future.  When I was little, going out far to “where my toes don’t touch”.

 

The longest I’ve ever been away from the ocean, was a little over a month, land locked in South East Asia, and once I got back to the Gulf of Thailand, I sat in the sun until I turned into una langosta.

 

Scuba was such a scary transition for me, and I’m not sure why.  It was the way that I was really able to become immersed into this world that has always been a part of me.  And Scuba was what sparked my interest and concern into all ocean life.  Before Scuba, I was scared of Sharks.  After Scuba, sharks and I became best friends forever.  Where’s the logic? On land, sharks were so far away from me, I never was in danger of getting Jaws-ed.  But in Scuba,  I was closer than ever.  I guess that’s what brought the water into me.  Made it relevant.

 

If, as I believe, we really did all come from the ocean, it makes sense that we’d be interested in it. Like some kind of weird family reunion, going into the ocean is like coming home. So, cheers to one of the most important parts of me.