My husband and kids love snow trips. He is excellent at snowboarding. My kids love to ski. They enjoy going with dad up and down again and again. I also love these trips, not particularly the skiing part, that anyway I always try. I really do! it’s a struggle. But I try at least to do it once or twice even when I prefer to stay cozy next to the fire enjoying a glass of wine and contemplating the white wandering landscapes.
Before we had kids he tried to teach me. Poor thing, he is a wonderful husband but a very bad impatient teacher. So we decided that to avoid any fighting, I better go to the ski school every time we went on these trips. I have learned but by no means I have ever got to be good at it. I think when I go with them on a slope they must be extremely frustrated waiting for me. I am the slowest skier ever. It’s green slopes and pizza-pizza most of the time. I have been thinking about it. What is the reason I can’t let go and enjoy it without the fear of falling? I will tell you why. Because I am in fear from the get-go. Just as this year was. So like going down slowly on a slope, I was pizza-pizza going down 2020 trying not to fall. And that has been exhausting!!!
I think about that initial fear and anxiety of the first skiing ride of the trip. The fear of falling off the lift chair or that I won’t jump in time so I imagine myself hanging upside down while the lift keeps going. None of that has ever happened though. I fell once getting off the lift because I was watching my daughter doing it so easily that I forgot about myself and then I jumped and fell face forward. Suddenly there is me on top of the mountain, surrounded by majestic scenery, and with no other option than to ski my way down. (Although once I was so terrified that the rescue team had to drag me down).
2020 had no rescue team or ski school. We had to go down this freaking black diamond hill trail month by month without training or preparation and watching all the craziness unfold as it happened. I started the year clueless and comfortable, like when you are going up the mountain on a gondola instead of a chairlift. The doors open and you are there, happiness around, people enjoying the snow, nothing to worry about. And then it happens. You see how you have to go first on a steep hill and you are thinking “what the heck I am doing here and how the fuck I am going to go down?”
2020 was all of us trying not to fall. Either with the fear of getting sick, or losing a job, or losing a loved one. But we still needed to go down the mountain. Even when we got sick, lost that job, or a loved one. The fear turned into desperation. Lots of precaution from the great majority. But as in the slopes, you can see the careless ones. The ones that not only go recklessly fast not caring who is in front of them but also, who can cause tragedy in an instant. Those are the ones that terrify me the most. My head still won’t comprehend why some people are still refusing to wear a mask or even worse, the ones that hide that they are sick, and who knowing they are a high risk still send the kids to school, or still go around as if nothing has happened, or who while being sick refuse to take a damn corona test. Those reckless fuckers are the worst of people. And they can fuck themselves. There, I said it.
Anyhow and somehow I always get to manage to go down those hills with dignity (aside from the rescue team incident). And yes I have fallen a lot of times. But you get up and keep going, there is no choice. Same thing with 2020. I fell many times with different things. Then I had to get up and kept going somehow. You learn to gain confidence and control with every fall, both skiing and in life. Even if it’s just a little bit.
Mostly, this year was a test for me. The year of preparing a book about my anxiety struggles and that is scheduled to launch in a few months, was also the year of the universe testing all the methods and tactics I wrote about in said book. As if the universe was telling me:
“Before you are launching your Tesla let’s try it first. But really try it to see if it works. Crash it even, to see how to fix it later or if it really can save your life while going on autopilot. Push it to the limit. And then you can go ahead and sell it to others.” So of course right before the end of the year, the biggest of my fears since March happened. Corona got us right before Halloween, giving me a November to remember, and putting me once again in a big fight with my anxiety monster. I tested my Tesla. Happy to report that even though I suffered minor injuries, if it wasn’t for my own methods and tactics I could easily be locked down in a mental institution by now. (Or in a AA meeting).
A few days are left of this crazy hell of a year. And I have the same sensation as when I finally get down a slope. No more steep hills. Hell yeah my butt hurts from the falls, my muscles are still tight and I am aching, but thankfully I finally made it. I am exhausted. Tired of wearing all the heavy clothes. So it’s time to get into the bar, lose my ski boots, and enjoy that first glass of cold beer. Take a deep breath and say I did it! I was slow, my body ached, but I did it!
Here I am ready to enjoy what’s left of 2020 in that way. Enjoying life, contemplating what I did with admiration, proud of whatever I learned and achieved all of this time, and grateful that I am alive and thriving. And yes, celebrating a different holiday season this time, with small gatherings, and scattered family members around the world. But grateful that I gracefully went down a damn black diamond hill trail and knowing that whatever hill is coming next time, I have nothing to fear. I will be ok. I will let go and just slide.
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