N.K. Murray

“Whoever is bruised fear not the blade.”

Lailah Gifty Akita

You know what they say about the best laid plans.

I am sitting here in the Whistler Public Library while the group I came with (minus one badass lady who fractured her humerus right below its head yesterday) is up on one of the two mountains skiing. To say this trip has been a challenge for me would be an understatement. . . I have always had high expectations for myself – sometimes loftier and more aspirational than realistic, I am not ashamed to admit. As I say frequently, I’m an overachiever with an inferiority complex.

I hadn’t been skiing yet this year because ‘Ski the East’ was more like, welp ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. The conditions back home were good for that last week right before I left, and I couldn’t make it work with my schedule. I bought new boots this fall in anticipation for this trip, and I spent a considerable amount of time wearing the liners around the house like slippers to pack them in.

I truly expected that while I wouldn’t be my normal ski self, I would at least be good enough to muddle through. I mean that’s what I do, I sign up for something, procrastinate on preparing until I have to, and then muscle through the damn thing.

What I didn’t expect was to feel like I’ve never skied before. Our first day out, I felt like I was missing something critical that was going to make what I was doing work better. Like I hadn’t taken my meds that day or there was something I could be doing differently that I was just not seeing. The snow was crazy. . . heavy, sugar-sand consistency, with the green circles on Whistler being more like the black diamonds back home. I fell on my first run when the left rental ski I was caught an inside edge. Good news – it wasn’t a bad fall. Bad news – I definitely re-hurt my bad thumb (from the rather unfortunate ceiling fan incident of May 2023 that we do not talk of as I don’t have a super cool story of how I tore the tendon and the ligament). I had to call home for a much-needed pep talk, because I was utterly failing at life at that moment – my legs hurt in ways they hadn’t before (and I kept telling myself that I’ve done two Empire State Rides!)

I pride myself on having legs of steel, and they were shaking cartoon-like, with my feet feeling like someone simultaneously took a sledgehammer and a blowtorch to them. I was doing something wrong, and I couldn’t figure out why it was so hard.

But I went back out yesterday.

I got one run in. It hurt to simply stand there in those infernal, brand new, not inexpensive ski boots that I was told were the best thing ever for me to ski in. I had a full-blown, sobbing, snotty, heaving chest, anxiety-wrapping-its-arms-around-my-trachea-and-squeezing-tight meltdown.

I couldn’t figure out for the life of me why something that I loved hurt this much.

And I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how the hell I was going to make it down to the bottom of the VERY large, VERY long hill we were on.

So, my ski buddy said we were going to be like snowboarders, and sit on the hill.

So we did.

I called myself a lot of nasty things.

I apologized almost as much as I dropped expletives.

And I repeated myself over and over again out loud to the universe and to anyone who would listen that I was not a wimp (no the word I used. . . . #iykyk) – that something had to be wrong, because this should have been so much easier than it was. Not that it shouldn’t be hard – but it shouldn’t be THIS hard.

I had promised myself when I came out here I would enjoy myself. I had very few set plans – more that I had some runs I wanted to hit so I could take in the views, because it’s not every day you get to go to the Canadian Rockies. I bought a Go Pro so I could finally see the things I was passing through, rather than just witnessing them whip by making my way to the next thing I had to do. Except I wasn’t whipping by anything. I was stopping and having to try to find some way, any way to stand that didn’t hurt. I consider myself as having a high pain tolerance, and I was absolutely crippled by this searing, inexplicable agony. (And yes, some of my meltdown was caught on the Go Pro, footage that will not be deleted, but also not be shared with anyone but me.)

With tears streaming down my face at the utter disappointment I felt with myself, we stopped at the next lift to ask the easiest way to get to the Gondola. The wonderful WB employee told me that I could take that lift up, and I would be able to pick up the Village Gondola and download. Once up top, I left my ski buddy with one of her patrol friends to continue on, and climbed aboard the gondola to take the long ride to the bottom.

And that ride soothed me. I couldn’t have made it down the hill – I know that now (and we will get to the why of that here in a minute, I promise). I locked those clearly-not-meant-for-me skis up at the bottom, and began the long, slow walk to where I knew I could grab a shuttle ride back to the condo. If I thought for one minute that walking in my ski socks wouldn’t have been a worse idea than walking in those boots, I would have done it. I hurt THAT badly.

In getting back to the condo, and dejectedly stripping off all of the things, I then looked at my legs. My shins were swollen, red, and covered in bruises. My toes were deep purple from the battering they took inside the boots. The skin on my toes was peeling off from the friction of the wool socks against them, and I finally understood why I felt like I had been in pointe shoes all day long. Regardless if they were the “right” size or the boots that I “should” be in – these boots certainly weren’t right for me.

I could have said I was done. I could have quit and headed to the ski shop and asked them for a refund for the rest of my rental days. I could have spiraled. I could have said I’m going to spend the rest of the day, the rest of the trip in the condo wanting to shield myself from the public who could clearly see that I failed on an EPIC level (pun intended). I could have thrown up my hands and ripped my ski pass in half and spent the rest of the trip in whichever bar would have me.

Instead, I didn’t quit, and I swapped those stupid skis for heavier all-mountain ones like I have at home and am used to. I’m going to be heading out tomorrow on Blizzard Black Pearls, with rented Rossi boots 3 full sizes larger than the ones I brought with me, and 1 full size larger than my old boots at home. And why 3 sizes larger? I literally couldn’t get my feet into the size of the boots I have at home. . . my feet are THAT swollen. (Note – I was given Salomon QST Lux 92’s. I should have handed them right back when I was handed them, as they were about half the weight of my J Skis Flyers. Not saying the Lux’s are bad – but they absolutely weren’t right for me, as they travelled a TON, and didn’t feel like I could turn them well. Obviously user error, not ski shop error.)

Today, I’ve spent the day wandering the village, and was happily ensconced in the Whistler Public Library before today’s Pride Parade. I got to write, and see a very sassy (non-football) raven meander in the snow in the Florence Petersen Park before heading back into the village to watch the Pride Parade.

Bruises eventually fade. My bruises, both to my legs/feet and my ego/self-image are proof that I tried, even though I failed. I don’t have any scars from this adventure, and for that I’m grateful – I’ll only be left with a memory of what happened, and be better prepared and positioned if/when something like this happens in the future. I’m positive I’ll be able to laugh about all of this sooner rather than later.

And that’s the lesson, don’t you think?