from We Heart It
When I was a kid, my family used to leave our Chicago home and make an annual trip to Winter Park Colorado for some skiing. Up on the mountain, my younger sister, Tiffany, and I loved to go off the groomed runs and ski the trails in the trees. Instead of smooth and wide, they were narrow, twisty, and bumpy, with large pine and aspen obstacles, and the occasional 4 foot drop at the end (totally had my knees in my ribcage on that one BUT stuck the landing).
As I got older and taller, my skies got longer (this was before the whole parabolic thing) and as they got longer making tight turns in the trees became a bit trickier and brought a whole new element of thrill to the entire outing.
On one particular day, we were schussing through the trees and all of the sudden, tight turn out of nowhere. Well, me and my jumbo skies did not make the turn and I ended up off the trail, stopped by a pine tree. Luckily, I was not going too fast, so no physical damage but I did end up with one ski on either side of the pine tree and my body pressed up against the tree. Tiff and I had a good laugh, in fact, I seem to remember one of us making some yellow snow (the one who's name rhymes with Biff) and then after quelling the giggles, I moved to extract myself. I pushed back against the tree with both arms but my arms were not long enough to get the tips of my skies past the tree trunk and when I let go of the tree, I slid right back into place, up against that trunk. A few more attempts yielded the same frustrating result. Back up against that tree. Finally, admitting defeat, I snapped myself out of my skies and resorted to removing my skies with my hands.
The past few months of my life have seen me struggling with some things. I am trying to work through some feelings I have and I am trying to change the things I need to so that I can move ahead. But despite the best intentions, I feel like I am back up against that darn tree. I push away, feel like I am making progress and then, bam, hello tree again. Only this time, no easy fix by removing my skies, instead I have to just keep pushing and hope that eventually, I see my way out of this bunch of trees and back on the trail once again.
3 comments:
Ashley, dodged a tree induced wound that go around but a few years later slammed into a tree and got to ride the ol' toboggan down the mountain and ended up with some broken ribs, 15 stitches and a possible hip fracture. What can I say, I am drawn to the trees. :)
I am the worst skier in the world. No, really, I am. But all joking aside, I'm so sorry you are going through a rough time! I think that the blog world is great because a. we can all understand since we've been there at point or another, and b. we are all cheering you on as you find the trail once more.
Thanks Ameena and I agree about the blog world being so full of support.
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