Lessons from a Ski Trail

This Sunday, our kids’ski lessons were cancelled due to the cold so we went on a lovely family and friends ski on our own.  I think my healing path is similar to the cross country ski trail.  Even though it is cross country, there are some hills, though most are gentle.  It is easy, fun, fast and a little bit scary to let yourself go down the hills.  It is hard work and slow to go up the hills.  Sometimes you ski chatting with someone, and sometimes you ski alone.  Sometimes, the wind leaves you chilled and breathless.  After working hard enough, you feel warm and strong enough to keep going.  Sometimes you fall, and it is easy to get back up.  Other times, it is harder and you need someone’s help.  Sometimes, you ski in a loop and end up right back where you started.  Other times, you travel a great distance and end up somewhere new.  One way or other, you must find your way back home.

 

Today, I feel sad and out of sorts.  I’m not sure why after a great weekend.  Maybe I didn’t want the weekend to end. Maybe it is the cold and relentless winter.  Maybe because a cherished friend and someone I leaned on for strength will be gone.  Maybe because Amrita didn’t get into soccer and more than soccer, it means we won’t be with our friends.  Maybe because I still don’t trust and can’t interpret my body signals and I always fear that I am skiing a loop.  Maybe I am sad because even if I am skiing a trail that goes somewhere new, I’m worried that it is not the right direction.  And even if it is the right direction, right now, I miss some of the landscapes of youth and having your life ahead of you, like university and falling in love and having babies and choosing a career and the innocent, though maybe naïve, hope of great things to come. 

 

I know that many things are still ahead.  That the thrill of learning and loving and doing and changing don’t stop as you age.  And I want to age.  Really, I do, because I’ve already faced, at great length, the possibility of the alternative and that is a really tough place to be.  But still, there are moments when we all long for the past. 

 

And yet, we can only ever ski forward.