I chased waves the way some people chase love — recklessly, breathlessly, stupidly. The ocean knocked me down again and again, and still I ran back, laughing, hungry for another hit. My body doesn’t want safety. It wants sensation — wind on my shoulders, thunder in my lungs, salt on my tongue, gravity fighting my thighs as the water pulls me deeper. I learned that surrender is not weakness when the sea is your teacher. You give in not to die — but to merge. When I finally collapsed on the shore, shaking, breathless and bruised, I felt more alive than any city ever made me feel. Freedom is not soft. It’s wild, wet, and merciless — and I crave it like oxygen.