I woke up at 4:50 in the morning.
I had a 6:15 ferry to catch. I packed the food I'd been too lazy to prepare the night before, threw my stuff in the car, and went downstairs.
The rear right tire was flat.
Of course.
When you decide you're going to change your life, you expect the universe to at least cooperate on the first morning. Mine had let the air out of my tire.
Somehow, I made the ferry.
I sat on the observation deck of the Queen of Oak Bay with a coffee, looking south. The land was closer on the north side. There were five girls in the car parked in front of mine, packed to the roof with stuff. One of them was blonde. She caught my attention.
I ate a peach.
Then I realized something strange about myself.
I didn't want to be the favorite.
I didn't want people to expect great things from me. I wanted the opposite. I wanted everyone to give up. Decide that nothing was going to come of me.
And then I'd come back from somewhere.
The underdog.
Maybe that's why I kept making life harder for myself.
To make a comeback, you first need somewhere to come back from.
After wandering around Nanaimo for a bit and getting another coffee, I started driving toward Tofino.
Somewhere along the road, it hit me:
I'd been dreaming about this for years.
Driving alone. Going somewhere nobody knew me. Not being completely sure where I would end up. A few things in the car and a road ahead of me.
And now I was doing it.
I had a car.
I had money in my pocket.
I had my health.
I was driving toward the Pacific.
I was living the dream.
So what the fuck was I still so restless about?
They gave me campsite 80 at Bella Pacifica.
After setting up the tent, I stood there looking at it for a while. When I opened the zipper, I could see the ocean.
Actually see it.
The Pacific.
I went out and bought three Tuborgs, carried my chair down to the beach, and sat facing the ocean.
In the picture, there was a chair, a beer, and the Pacific.
Outside the picture, there was me.
And my brain.
That fucker comes everywhere.
After a while, the loneliness kicked in.
I used to like being alone.
At least that's how I remembered it. Lately, I'd even convinced myself that if I could just be alone again, I'd somehow become myself again.
Well, now I was alone.
And it was frightening.
Hundreds of kilometres from home, with the Pacific Ocean in front of me, loneliness felt like a thin sheet of glass separating me from the rest of the world.
Then I had a more frightening thought.
What if I couldn't find peace alone anymore?
Because if I'd come here with someone else, I probably would have wished I'd come alone.
Now I'd come alone.
So that wasn't it either.
Sometimes you're not unhappy because you can't get what you want.
You're unhappy because you finally get it and discover it isn't enough.
That evening I went to Chesterman Beach.
The sun was setting.
The sky went orange, then purple, with patches of blue still caught between them. There were strange patterns in the clouds. The waves were slowly getting closer.
It was one of the most beautiful sunsets I'd ever seen.
And my restlessness was at its peak.
Then I thought I understood why.
Maybe I didn't think I deserved any of it.
Nothing in my life was really in order.
The tires on my car were nearly done. There was air in the brake lines. I didn't know how long my money would last. Work was uncertain. I didn't even know for sure whether I'd still be in Canada a few months from now.
But I'd come anyway.
I hadn't waited for everything to be fixed.
I'd been afraid, and I'd come anyway.
I told myself:
Most people wouldn't have the balls to come here alone.
Maybe that wasn't true.
It didn't matter.
I needed to believe it right then.
The sun sank a little lower. Purple and orange started bleeding into each other.
The waves crept closer to my feet.
I watched them and thought:
These are the waves that will heal me.
Without realizing what an enormous responsibility I'd just given them.
The next morning, I went surfing.
My instructor was a cheerful guy named Aiden. They gave me a nine-foot board.
I tried to catch a wave.
Fell.
Tried again.
Fell again.
Tried again.
At some point, I stopped thinking.
There was no job.
No work permit.
No future.
No self-actualization.
No existential crisis.
There was a wave coming toward me, and I had to stand up at the right moment.
If I thought too much, I'd fall anyway.
For a few seconds, I stayed up.
Then I fell again.
I laughed.
And paddled back out.
That evening, I was waiting in Nanaimo for the 8:45 ferry.
I'd arrived an hour early. I walked around the marina for a while, then went back to the car and opened my notebook.
I couldn't find much to write.
That was strange.
For the past few weeks, I'd been capable of dissecting the smallest discomfort in my head for pages.
But that morning I'd gone surfing.
I'd had a fucking good time.
I was happy.
And I had nothing to say.
Then it occurred to me:
Maybe I don't feel like writing when I'm happy.
I closed the notebook.
Maybe the waves hadn't healed me.
But for a few hours, they'd made me forget that I was supposed to be healing myself.
For now, that was enough.