It's Me, Isn't It?

I'm the reason why the much-awaited swells never materialize at the breaks I frequent, right? This is really starting to get to me. There were waves. And I guess one should be grateful for small favors. Still, RPB was not firing and it was a f*%^king mob scene. I got a parking spot on PCH only because I willed it to happen. The space was a tight one, a tight one that I'm capable of making when given the space and the time (i.e., on a city street where people can simply go around you). There was no way I could quickly parallel park in a space that small. Thankfully, the guy parked in front of the space guided me in. I wasn't as close to the curb as I would have liked—when my mom parks like that I yell "Taxi!" and tell her I'll need a cab to get from the car to the curb—but he said it was good enough. CYT parked in the restaurant parking lot. It was $7! Are you kidding me? I know I'm working now; I'm still not paying that much to park at an overly-crowded break on a day that doesn't even approach epic. My session was, once again, mediocre. Now I'm starting to think it's me. Granted, I'm not surfing regularly any longer. I can feel the difference. I feel a little off these days. If I'm not paddling hard enough to get into a wave, I'm taking two or three paddles too few and then miss the wave even when I am paddling hard enough. I drop in to do a bottom turn and then can't seem to climb back up into the wave to find trim. This irritates me. Now I'm going to do this contest tomorrow and I feel like I should keep my ass at home. It's not like I think I'm going to go out there and kill it. One of the reasons why I'm going is to support my club. I've never been to one of our contests. They usually fall on Soul Brother #1's birthday. Frankly, I don't think spending all day at the beach watching your wife sit around waiting to get in the water for 15 minutes at a pop is how he wants to spend his birthday. This year I lucked out. His birthday is on Monday. So now I can do the contest, but I'm not feelin' it. Perhaps being able to be in the water with only a few other people will help. It's kind of hard to clear your head and recharge your batteries—which is what surfing allows me to do—when there are 500 other people in the water. Today's session just didn't do it for me. Send me some good karma tonight and tomorrow. I'm not going there with the intention of winning. I just don't want to look like an idiot.