Gone Surfing

It was about two years ago when we took our trip Make a Wish Trip to Australia.  There were a lot of really amazing parts, bridge climbing, koala bear petting, Outback Resturant dining and surfing.  I wanted nothing to do with this particular part of the wish.  Now, before you start in on me about how it was Ashlyn's wish and she survived cancer and Hayley donated life saving marrow and Jacob was half my age and he wasn't chicken blah, blah, blah.  I am terrified of water that is deeper, darker and bigger than me.  In other words, I like swimming pools, shallow streams, the very edge of the Pacific Ocean. 
Anyway, back to this part of the wish.  Ashlyn wanted to go surfing.  Danny, Hayley and Jacob were all pretty stoked about it.  See, I am not against surfing, I know the lingo.  I just know that I did not want to go that far into the ocean.  I cannot swim.  I have no upper body strength.  I have an unnatural fear of sharks and pirates.  (The pirate fear is why I won't go on a cruise!).  But there I was, knee deep in the Pacific Ocean.  I was in my super cool wetsuit.  I had my board.  I had a real life Australian Surfer Guy to show me how to surf.  He had the zinc oxide and the surfer terms and everything!  (He also had a huge tolerance for Dumbasses from America!)
There are a lot of steps to surfing.  I don't remember what they all were because I never mastered any of them.  I know that I started out on the board and ended in the water.  Over and over again.  Danny and the kids managed to get their feet out from under them and rode a wave or two into the beach, but not me.  And that was perfectly OK.  I had no intention of leaving New South Wales a proficient surfer.  Considering I came to New South Wales with no intention of even trying surfing, I think wiping out a couple of dozen times was pretty cool.
After the lesson was over, the boards were put away, the wet suits returned and the certificates signed (yes, I am a certified surfer, not really but I do have a certificate from a surfing place in Bondi Beach and that is good enough for me) I began the tedious task of telling Danny, Ashlyn, Hayley and Jacob that they were right.  Surfing, or my version of it, is fun and not that scary.  The chances of me being eaten by a shark were none.  I didn't even have to go out into the deep, I could touch the whole time.  So in a nutshell, they were all right and I was all wrong.  Who knew?
Now, this rationale will not get me to jump out of a plane or bungee jump or run with the bulls.  But it will get me to think twice before I completely poo-poo something.  Oh, I will probably poo poo it, because that is my M.O. but I will relent and do whatever it is they want me to do and I will end up loving it.  And I will end up telling them that they were right and I was wrong.  
So the next time you see me with sheepish grin, head hanging down, scuffing feet along the pavement, you'll know that I just had a great time doing something I was adament that I would hate!