Find Your Beach

Passion for me is synonymous with the ocean. It always has been. However, before starting this blog I almost shied away from what was actually in my heart to pick a topic with lesser appeal and possibly more easily recalled content. As this is our last post and I scroll through my blog, I am beyond at peace with my decision to take up my passion and share it with others, and I hope to have made a connection with ocean-lovers and landlocked people alike. I'd like to depart from this blog some final thoughts and a little bit of advice that I have come to live my life by.

Find your peace, and find your beach. I understand not everyone has a weird obsession with the ocean, not everyone craves sand between their toes and salt in their hair, but I think that passion in life is as vital as the air we breathe. Living for something and learning to love something is so important, regardless of what it is. A person, a place, a feeling, a smell. Anything. It has made a huge impact on my outlook and perspective to feel such a strong love, connection, and affinity towards the ocean. My entrancement by the sea from a young age has matured and nurtured a lot of my skills and puts a lot of life conflicts and situations in a context I can understand.

For one, the ocean has given me my people and my favorite days. When I think about family and life long friends, I think about the places I have been and the people I have been with that share the same passion. My "summer friends", I like to call them, that I grew up with at the beach, have become a piece of my heart and an extension of my family. 18 years of rolling around in the sand, surfing all  day, chasing sunsets, and causing havoc in our beachy city every summer has molded me and shaped me. While I only see my summer family 3 months out of the year, increasingly less and less as we all get older and busier, I know I have a lifelong confidates and best friends spread across the country at any given time. The most peculiar part about my summer family is our differences. Our differences in age, hometown, and interests. However, the one thing that strings us together into a loving crew is our passion, love, and gratefulness for the ocean and the days that allowed our paths to cross.

So, while the beach is my peace and where I feel at home, I encourage everyone to find your own "beach"; your own passion and your own place that makes you feel like you are on top of the world and also humbly small at the same time.