Monthly Archives: December 2013

Today is New Year’s Eve.  As I sit here in my down-sized, divorce house in Colorado (about half the size of my married home in Illinois–the home my then-husband designed and had built for our growing family), I’m staring at all the clutter, toys, video games, books, suddenly out-of-place Christmas decorations and just stuff lying around what seems to be every square inch, and I really wish I already started drinking.  Yes, I admit it.  I wish I had a nice, super-friendly, alcohol-induced buzz humming through my body, making my brain a little fuzzy, a little less perfectly clear and present in this mess of a house.  But I didn’t, so I don’t.  What I do have is too much dust on the surfaces, too many dishes in the sink and too much dog hair on the dull wooden floors.

In 2010, I counted down the minutes until 2011 by crying on my couch in my roomier, cleaner, dust-free married home in Illinois.  I had a better idea of what I faced:  a year-long deployment to Afghanistan, a divorce, and a year away from my children.  In 2011, I counted down the minutes to 2012 from Afghanistan, happy in the knowledge that I would be heading back to the states in a few weeks, and strangely secure in the knowledge that I would be starting over in the new year.  Last year, I counted down the New Year from a party in New Orleans with my great friend, Varner.   We dressed up, went out, drank responsibly, and I danced for the first time in a very long time.  It was fun, and I was excited about the prospects of 2013 because, before my trip, I went on a date with a guy from Denver and I had excitement about possibilities.  My excitement wasn’t authentic though; it was me trying to keep up with my ex who was getting married in a couple of months.  I wasn’t ready and still had personal work to do.

New Year’s is marketed as the time of the year when we should take account of the past and celebrate the hope of the future.  But what happens if the unknown is just too unknown, you know?  Yesterday, I drove to the mountains to do some snowboarding before my kids came home from their weekend with their dad.  The powder was nearly perfect:  soft, ample, fluffy–what the seasoned riders call “pow.”  Feeling brave, I decided to hit some of the trails that I hadn’t explored yet–it was time to branch away from the beginner “greens” to the more experienced “blue” trails.  There’s one lift at Winter Park called the Panoramic Lift.  It takes riders to the top of the mountain to overlook the brilliance of the peaks at over 12,000 feet above sea level.  After clumsily exiting the lift to the top of the world, I pulled out my cellphone to snap a picture and was disappointed to see the coveted panoramic view of everything below blocked by an unmoving, cloudy haze.  With the exception of the top of the ridge, all I could clearly know was the Parsenn Bowl, what resembled a spoon’s scoop out of the mountaintop.  After waiting patiently for the 20-minute ride to the top of the summit, I couldn’t see anything below me, and now I had to dive down into it.  That’s a bit what New Year’s Eve looks like to me this year.

Marketing picture of 12,600 feet–what I didn’t get to see

This year, I’m cleaning my cluttered house (or going to be), taking stock of 2013, and trying to see past my own cloudy haze into 2014.  Over the last few years, I’ve been sowing, rebuilding, healing, thinking, crying, starting and starting and starting over and over again.  What’s in store for 2014?  This is probably the part where my readers (all 20 of you) expect me to say that I’m confident in the future, but, truthfully, I don’t feel anything for 2014 yet.  I don’t feel sad like I did in 2010, or brave like I did in 2011, or falsely excited like I did in 2012.   I feel…nothing.  Maybe I’m too tired from sowing.  And a little impatient to see some buds sprouting through the packed earth.  My faith calls me to remember that I’ve been consistently led through darkness in my past to the light, but I can’t see any light…yet.  So, I keep coming back to my time on the mountain yesterday, when I stood at the top, and I was certain of one thing:  I had to get back to the base somehow.  I had my board strapped to my feet, and I knew how to use it.  Regardless whether or not I could see what was beyond the cloud cover, I did have what I needed to ride my way to where I could see things more clearly.  I stood up, pushed off and started the descent.

My views on the way down

Even though I couldn’t see anything clearly from the top, with every inch I rode down, the paths became clearer.  I may not have been able to take the picture I wanted, but the scenery that surrounded me was breathtaking, and when I got to the bottom I could look back up the slopes and catch my breath at the distance I’d covered.  I’m holding onto that experience as 2014 looms ahead of me.  I have what it takes to face the unknown, and the clouds can’t stay there forever.  Some day, they will move.  For now, it’s time to get back to work.

My friend Holly is responsible for my addiction.  She said it was what all the cool people were doing, and I wanted to be cool.  She made it look so great, and fun, and freeing.  She was my pusher, and after only one trip on the powder I was hooked.  Before I knew it, I was taking a trip every other weekend when my kids were with their dad, sometimes even taking off work to maximize the experience.  I fell madly in love with snowboarding.

The first time I tried snowboarding was the same day my ex was getting married somewhere in Pittsburgh.  It was about a week before my 37th birthday, and I could not sit at home counting down the minutes.  Instead, I agreed to take a snowboarding lesson at Keystone Ski Resort in Colorado.  I guess I figured what better way to keep my mind occupied than by hurtling down a mountain at breakneck speeds?  I wasn’t a total novice to the slopes.  I had tried skiing once in college when my roommate wanted to go to Paoli Peaks in Indiana.  I was super ready because the hills of Indiana are EXACTLY the same as the 12,400 foot peaks in Colorado.

The morning of my snowboarding lesson I was excited but nervous.  My last trip on powder ended up with one ski wrapped backwards (and my knee along with it), a swollen ankle, some sort of medical snowmobile ride and young children whizzing past my mangled form on tiny skis.  And that was nearly 20 years earlier.  I was determined not to give in to the very real fear (some may say “common sense”) that threatened to talk me out of jumping on the board and taking it for a ride.

In the first few minutes of the lesson I learned how to strap my feet into the bindings (straps on the board that keep your feet attached when you fall again and again and again–and they’re supposed to help you actually control the board like reins on a willful stallion), and I learned to “skate,” by strapping in my lead foot and pushing my back foot along the snow, moving the board forward like a skateboard.  I rocked skating.  Rocked it.  If skating on a snowboard was an Olympic event, I definitely would have received a silver medal.  Feeling pretty cocky, I stupidly indicated I was ready for more.  Eventually, I moved into the phase where both feet could be strapped firmly into the bindings, and my instructor and I took a magic carpet (moving sidewalk) up the gentle slope of “learner’s hill.”

The hill looked very sweet from the bottom.  Its gentle sloping and harmless, cloud-like snow was inviting and safe–from the bottom.  Once the carpet deposited me at the top of the “bump,” as my instructor called it, I made the mistake of looking down.  The bottom was miles away, and seemed to be on an almost straight-down, death drop from where I was standing with my inadequate skating accomplishments.  The instructor reminded me that I did, indeed, know how to stop (I had practiced several times), and we were here at the top of Mt Everest so I could practice “leafing,” which was riding down the hill, drifting from side to side like a leaf falling from a tree to the ground.  I rocked falling.  I fell trying to stand up on the board; I fell within a few feet of standing up on the board; I fell midway down the hill; I fell two or three more times before I reached the bottom of the hill; and I fell trying to get in line for the magic carpet to take me back up the hill.  The snow falsely presented its softness and every fall hurt, a lot.  It was the longest 15 minutes of my life, and I couldn’t get enough.  Traveling on the snow, even upright only a few feet at time, I felt unfettered.  Despite being strapped onto the board, I started to feel parts of my heart and mind become resuscitated after years of flatlining.

I took another lesson a week later and the conditions were perfect.  Inches and inches of fresh, soft, ample snow cushioned the slopes, and I started progressing in my skills.  I was hooked.  The feeling of riding down the mountain was enough to keep me coming back fall after fall, ride after ride.  During those first few days, I could barely sit on my backside and I knocked my shoulder away from the comfy home of its socket.  I didn’t care.  Each time I got on the lift, my fear (common sense) would build, and my heart would flap its wings frantically in my chest.  Was I really going to hurl myself down the 12,000 foot mountain?  Seriously?  Yep–over and over.

The first time I made it down the mountain without falling was a personal triumph–and my butt-bone was pretty happy about it, too.  I don’t know what the triumph was over exactly, maybe loss.   For the last few years going through a divorce and taking inventory of whatever was left, I had lost so much, even the ability to truly feel anything–but snowboarding helped me stir some embers and bring something about me back to life.  And, even though there’s a line at every ski lift that’s clearly marked “Singles only,” I hold my head high, skate right to the front like a silver medalist would, hop on the lift with whatever 12-year old snowboard aficionados are heading up the mountain, and get ready to enjoy my ride.