What learning to ski taught me about myself

When I was twelve years old my family moved from the quaint and academically flourishing Peachtree City, Georgia to the barren sleeping giant that is Helena, Montana. Twelve is an awkward age for every youngster trying to find a way to fit into this big world, but it was particularly unfortunate for this soon-to-be middle schooler.

As the daunting reality of my new surrounds began to unfold, I – like any Georgia native – was most naively excited to experience my first snow day. Granted it was now July, I still had months to learn what this grand day meant to my new middle school friends.

I soon learned that this meant snowboarding. My professed dreams of skiing gracefully in a snow-white ski outfit were quickly crushed in following remarks that could only end in ridicule if I so chose to break the “cool” mold.

I promptly traded my Oshkosh and Keds for Roxy and Burton, my Southern accent for surfer slang that somehow became ambiguous with snow, and love of ballet for a sport that was furthest from everything I was.

I conformed to survive. I conformed to avoid. I lost myself at twelve years old.

The years that followed involved a few more moves and a few more schools. Each one let way to the possibility of rehabilitation of the loss that came before. But I dared not break the mold. It would take twelve years to fully get myself back.

In the early winter of 2012 I had the chance to relive my adolescent sport.  When asked if I would “board or ski,” the fear crept in. But it was a different emotion of fear – the fear of breaking away from the falsified safety of what I knew. I snowboarded on that trip, and knew it wasn’t me at every turn.

The freedom did come with my most recent trip to Utah, where I finally learned to ski. Firm in my decision, I resolved to try something new, the thing I knew I was meant to do from the beginning of my relationship with snowy peaks.

Freedom from the past means something different for everyone, but it is almost always triggered by a specific memory or event. The weight of that one decision to conform I carried for twelve years was finally lifted when I changed the pattern. If we are honest with each other we know this has nothing to do with the winter sport, and more to do with the moment I decided to change who I was to be accepted for who I was not. A loose metaphor I know, but a moment of self-realization can come from even the most pedestrian life events. i.e. An association of memories with an activity.

I say all of this to say: Christ showed me His extravagant grace in those twelve years. He wants to show us who we really are, but He frequently asks us to break the pattern of lies to get to the final reveal. I cannot say I am 100% certain of all aspects of my life, but I can say I am finally at peace with some of the messy ones.

If you are finding yourself in a pattern weaved so tight you feel like there is no way out my advice is this – go back to the beginning. Go back to the first memory that significantly changed the way you navigated the mountain, and take a new path.