You Have Nothing to Prove, and Where Did I Go Right?

I need to remember this the next time I do anything. I have nothing to prove to anyone ever, including myself. Most especially myself.

You are welcome for this hard earned wisdom I learned today.

Yesterday was wet, so wet there was a rainbow.

I am with my family on Spring Break in Whistler. This was not my first choice for vacation, but everyone else wanted to go here, especially the Boy. To me, a big ski vacation is like going to Disneyland--the only reason I would go is because my kids want to go. And my kids have never wanted to see Disneyland or Disney World, so I dodged those bullets. When he was younger, the Boy wanted to see Legoland, the masculine version of Disneyland -- all building materials and no tulle in sight. When Claire-Adele was ten, she wanted to go to London and I was totally hip to that.

I wouldn't be complaining about skiing if I wasn't such a laggard compared to my family. Eight years ago, I was the best skier in my family, as the kids didn't know how to ski and Jack was meh. Jack and I thought skiing would be a great way to get out of the house in the gray and gloomy winters in the Pacific Northwest. Little did I know then my kids would take to skiing like rats to a sewer. Where did I go right?

I am not complaining about going to Whistler for Spring Break. I am complaining about going to Whistler for Spring Break again. Seriously, I'd like to go someplace else for vacation. My friends on Facebook are in Mexico, Iceland, Hawaii, and Palm Springs. Claire-Adele's boyfriend went to Europe. I would like to be in any of those places. I have other friends who are in Ohio, Iowa and Boston for vacation. The midwest is looking good. The friend in Mexico is remarried and I am FB friends with his new wife, which is nice. I was so jealous of her pictures. What I am going to have to do to get a vacation in Mexico where I can sit on the beach and/or poolside while someone brings me cervezas? Get divorced, remarried, and find someone who wants to go to Mexico for vacation? That's a bit extreme, if you ask me.

Not exactly a bluebird day.

Instead of floating in the ocean in Maui, I am burning my thighs, hamstrings and glutes in very wintery weather. This morning, the snow at 6,000 was firm. Lower down in the middle of the afternoon, it was heavy and wet. Very heavy and very wet. And the runs here are long. Very long. Which means unless I stopped and rested, my legs got really tired. Pre-ACL tear, I loved it when my thighs burned when I skied. Post-ACL tear, I freak out when my legs burn.

A few runs after lunch, I left my family on Blackcomb and I went back to Whistler on the Peak-to-Peak. Whistler was blustery. Not regular blustery, but mountain blustery. I decided to try to the snow lower on the mountain, which was--as mentioned before--heavy and wet. The Eskimos must have a name for this shit, but likely not. Or they do now with the global warming. They probably call it something like snow that should melt if it weren't for the vast amount of it keeping it cold itself. My daughter called it mashed potato snow. This was more like mud snow, except it was fast. I hated this snow.

More than I hated this snow, I hated myself for thinking I could get down. At the mid-station, I could have ridden the gondola back down. There was even a nice sign "Tired? Cold? Ride the Gondola down!" Did I listen to the sign? No. I thought if I rested a bit my legs would feel better and I could make it down. So I rested. Nevermind my legs were pooped. Nevermind I asked some old timer on mono-ski what the snow was like, and he said "Just as bad as this here, except worse."

Did I listen to my legs, the sign at the gondola and an expert old guy skier?

No. I did not.

I can make it down, I told myself.

But you want to ski another day, I told myself back.

You did it yesterday and it was a piece of cake, I told myself again. And the snow doesn't look that bad. It could be fine.

Alright, I told myself. I can do this.

Are you sure? There is no shame in taking the gondola down, thought my sensible, sane, conservative self. You've already skied down 2,800 vertical feet. That's enough.

You can handle another 1,000 vertical feet, I told myself. Come on. What are you, some kind of a wuss? Besides, it will be fun.

Fun. Right. I wouldn't talk to my best friend like that, but I talk to myself like that. That is messed up. What is more messed up is that no one else was there pushing me to go down. As much as I'd like to, I cannot blame Jack, Claire-Adele, or the Boy. I brought this whole disaster on myself.

The snow was a mess. When I made it down the first turn, I seriously thought about marching back up. There was one steep spot that wasn't too steep except for the shit condition of the snow. I had to side step down. I had no pride. I was snowplowing part of it. Evan, my physical therapist, would tell me I was good at recruiting other muscles to do the work in my physical therapy, which is not a good thing for physical therapy when you are trying to re-activate your quadriceps. Recruiting other muscles was fantastic today when I was trying to get down the hill.

All of this makes me forget how much fun I have skiing. Skiing is like the little girl with little curl right in the middle of her forehead. When it is good, it is very, very good. But when it is bad, it horrid.

We only have three more days here before we head back to Seattle. Tomorrow, I will listen to my sensible self.

Views from Peak-to-Peak