When Life Gets Tough, Toughen Up

At 28 years old, I learned how to ski for the first time. It was great, until it was disastrous, and then it was great again. Despite my husband being a former competitive skiier, I decided to take proper lessons. The lessons went great. My teacher kept saying "athlete position" and I squatted, engaging my glutes and my quads, like nobody's business and felt like a boss. When I figured out how to stop, I felt ready to graduate from the bunny slopes to the..."hare" slope. I wasn't ready for anything crazy, but something a little more challenging. This one was actually called "Little Thunder," but it was not so little.

After lunch, we grabbed some poles for me to use, because my husband said it would help me out, and then headed for the lift. On the lift, I could feel my heart tell my head to have no fear, there was no way I was going to fall out of the lift chair--I just sat still and tight. Trying to quiet the fear I completely forgot about what I was supposed to do to get off the lift. By the time it was time to get off, Chris grabbed me and pulled me off with him--it was great, because I didn't even have to worry about falling.

At the top of the this slope my brain suddenly turned to mush as I realized how far down I had to go to reach the base of the mountain again. Needless to say, the next 10-15 minutes were a nightmare, and I totally ate it a few times. I'd go, gain too much speed,
lose control, and eat it with all the dramatics of a Looney Toon episode. At least, that's how I imagined I looked. I partly blame the poles, because they totally threw me off; but what was more challenging was figuring out how to get up whenever I did fall. I hadn't learned how to do that in class, because I didn't fall during my class. I was grateful Chris was with me, but it didn't help that we are exact opposite personalities, so however he was trying to instruct me was not working. At one point I tried to see if I could side-step down the entire mountain. I wanted to cry like a big baby a couple times, because why was this so hard???? And how the heck do I slow down and stop when I want to????

Eventually Chris took all four of our poles, held them in both his hands and told me to grab on. Then he skiied us down the rest of the mountain, and I asked him why we couldn't always ski like that, because that was so fun! When we got to the base, I decided to go back to the bunny slopes and he went off to find our friends. Once I mastered the bunny slopes I slowly moved my way higher and higher up the hill, and practiced stopping. By the end I was proud of myself, and felt ready to tackle "Little Thunder" again, but instead we went tubing to finish out the day.

Skiing reminded me of a few good life lessons, including:

1. "School" doesn't always prepare you for real life, but it is nevertheless essential, because it gives you the fundamental building blocks for real life.
2. Sometimes things are great, until they're not, and then they're great again.
3. Don't let fear stop you.
4. When life gets tough, toughen up.
5. Sometimes the only way to learn is to fall, and sometimes you have to fall hard.
6. It is important to learn how to slow down.
7. Sometimes you just have to go back to the basics.
8. Baby steps.

Remember, life is an adventure--embrace it.

BIG LOVE & HUGS

Love,

Justine
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