Growing up I didn’t have much autonomy. I didn’t grow up in an environment where I could safely express myself and it chipped away at who I was. Every aspect of my life was very controlled and sheltered. Since I was a little girl I can remember seeing kids outside my window playing after school. I couldn’t — this created an intense feeling of fomo. I would sneak and play outside with my neighborhood friends while my parents were at work and came home before their car ended up in the driveway later that same evening. I couldn't go hang out with friends outside of school. “You don’t have any friends. You go to school and then you come straight home” My father once told me. Nothing but frustration filled me up inside. I wasn’t understanding why my need to have a social life outside of school was difficult to have. I dreaded summers the most because I was shut off from the world. Ahhh summer, free from school and endless homework for a few months. What a bliss, right? No, it wasn’t for me. See the thing is without school it was like being in a cage. I wasn’t allowed to go anywhere or do anything. It was so bad to point where I loved being at school ironically because that was the only place where I could be kid even if it was a supervised bubble outside my house. In middle school I wanted to explore different styles with my hair. To me my hair was my identity that remained untapped because my mom would wash and style my hair ONLY. I wasn’t able to even though it was hair growing from my own scalp. My mother was very controlling it felt as if my hair was an extension of herself. I would get in great trouble if I had tried to do anything with my hair. It was her way of exerting power and emotional control over me. The adventurous side of me during my childhood never got to be nurtured but resentment fostered. Until my early teen years, freedom was very important to me. Freedom gave me access to explore things I missed out on when I was little girl. Freedom gave me new experiences that opened my eyes to life. Freedom made me feel new emotions that I never got to feel. Freedom made me feel limitless to what I can do, see, taste, and be. Freedom was not handed to me ultimately conditioned me to believe that it is something I must force and conquer to obtain it. Once I escaped the rigid environment, I felt the immense need to control freedom. My idea of freedom is connected to control, independence, and self-reliance. I got to call all the shots and having complete authority over my life without needing anyone or anything to fall back on but myself. Freedom was a shield to protect my autonomy. I built up walls around myself where circumstances, expectations, pressure wouldn’t be able reach me. 

Sun blazing on the beautiful Pacific Ocean. All you can hear is the waves crashing on the beautiful beige cinnamon tinted sandy beaches. Surrounded by the lush tropical rainforest containing animals like Sloths, Loud Mantled Howler Monkeys, Coatis, Toucans, Macaws, and Poison Dart Frogs in the heart of Central America. Jaco, Costa Rica. The perfect surfing destination. Stretching across 2.5 miles or 4 kilometers, the sandy bay is open to the incoming wave energy made far out in the Pacific Ocean. The headlands is a high steep point of land that extends outward into the sea which is surrounded by water on all three sides. Headlands are tough rock that could be made of limestone or granite to give a few examples. (Headland) They form where soft and hard rock sit next to each other. Then, the ocean waves hit against the soft rock and washes them away. Which causes the soft areas to turn into bays with the hard rock sticking out. The sand bottom shifts and create beach breaks spreading to create the sandbar distribution. (Bays and Headlands) The water year-round is warm and ranges typically from 79-84 degrees Fahrenheit and 26-29 degrees Celsius. The water being this warm make it less dense comparing to cold water. Typically, surfers in Jaco don’t wear thick wet suits because of this. This is a great advantage making it easier for freedom of movement. The tides are consistent all year round in Jaco. The most ideal tide is mid to high tides. When the water rises, it covers the sandbars. This prevents the waves from dumping at once and collapsing.

Ocean waves are formed by wind blowing across the surface of the ocean creating friction. Tiny ripples called capillary waves are made due to the friction of the wind. The more energy transferring makes them into a larger chop (Birth of the wave). The swell forms as waves in the windy area where they started. The energy moves through the water in circular movements called water orbitals. Now, the wave is approaching land and the water becomes shallow. When the depth of the water is half the wavelength, the bottom of the wave starts to drag against the seafloor. The speed of the bottom of the wave slows down. The wave doesn’t slow down completely because it is still moving fast in deep water where the wave bunches up. The wavelength gets shorter, and the wave grows in height. The wave grows taller and steep until its height is 1/7th of its length. The bottom of the wave is stopped at the seafloor, but the crest keeps moving forward at rapid speed. Now with the crest having no support at the bottom the wave comes forward and collapses, bringing all its stored energy back into the beach. (10.2 Waves at Sea) That drag against the seafloor was my childhood. Underneath me, the current never stopped. The more my world compressed, the higher the pressure grew inside me, I had no choice but to break.

Breathe in and breathe out. “This is all in your head Christa.”, as I tell myself getting ready to head to the water to ride my first wave. My friend Wini and I don’t know anything about surfing. We were both nervous and unsure how this experience would go. I have a big fear of large bodies of waters. I feel like a small spectacle in this huge container ready to be swallowed. I have no control of the water or how it moves. The uncertainty gives me anxiety. I’m shaking uncontrollably. I can’t relax because I don’t have control of how this can go. Walking into the ocean with my guard up, “Don’t fall. Don’t fall. Don’t fall.” I get on the board laying on my stomach waiting for the waves to creep up on me. “Get up, GO” my instructor John yells. I jump up and immediately lose balance and fall face forward into the water. I get up frustrated and remind myself that this is my first time. Give yourself grace, did you expect to be a pro on the first go? Loosening the tension in my body. I tell myself be one with the water. You can’t fight the water. You can’t control what it will do. Instead, just go with the flow and find alignment. The water isn’t your enemy; it is your friend. I try again, lay down flat on my stomach, as I feel the wave under my board I jump up, plant my feet, bend my knees, and put my arms up. I rode the wave. In this moment I realize you don’t need to control freedom. By letting go of the need to micromanage everything in an unpredictable world is the definition of freedom. We often give ourselves the illusion that we can control the future, people, and outcome of situations. Releasing control brings peace when you aren’t fighting against the current of life. Letting go brings acceptance and gives you the openness to new opportunities. I felt free and, in the moment, feeling the warm water, feeling the sun on my skin, tasting the salt water, and breathing in the crisp air with the jungle as my backdrop. How lucky do I feel to be here surfing. Having the freedom to travel and experience new things. Broadening my horizons in Costa Rica. Feeling incredible blessed this is when everything changed for me.

Pura Vida. The well-known Costa Rican way of life meaning “pure life”. The principle of acceptance, presence, and letting go a sense of urgency all the time. This phrase is to abandon the modern stress to have flexibility. True freedom comes from liberating yourself from the illusion of control. If a plan changes, something gets cancelled, a storm hits, or you hit a roadblock you know that you can’t change the circumstances, but you can control how you react to it. Pura Vida shifts how we balance control and the freedom of existence. I mentally trapped myself for the need of control all the time when real autonomy comes through clarity to live on your own terms.

Work Cited

Wikipedia contributors. "Headland." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 29 Jul. 2026. Web. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Headland. 17 Sep. 2026.

Internet Geography, “Bays and Headlands” https://www.internetgeography.net/geotopics/bays-and-headlands/

Rogers Wiliams University, “10.2 Waves at Sea”, https://rwu.pressbooks.pub/webboceanography/chapter/10-2-waves-at-sea/

A woman with short curly hair in a black wetsuit lying on a surfboard in the ocean with a man in a black wetsuit helping her, and ocean waves in the background.
Two people riding a surfboard in the ocean, with waves and foam around them, smiling and enjoying the ride.
A woman with red hair, wearing a black jacket, is balancing on a surfboard while a man floats in the water nearby. They appear to be enjoying surfing at the beach with waves crashing around them and a rocky, forested shoreline in the background.
A woman smiling and crouching on a surfboard in the ocean, preparing to ride a wave.