skiing on purpose.

Skiing to me is a lot like scuba diving. You pay a lot of money to buy or rent a lot of equipment. Then you drive to somewhere far, far away where you might have to pay more money for the privilege of using stuff like nature and weather. You spend a lot of time putting on funny special clothes and uncomfortable gear that makes you look stupid and causes much difficulty in basic movement. After hours of this, you spend fifteen minutes or so doing the actual activity. And while the actual activities are fun to do, I guess I never felt strongly about them to put forth the effort for the other stuff.

Josh's dad likes to ski. And he likes to dangle lift tickets like expensive paper carrots in front of his sons to get them to hang out with him. Every Christmas or birthday he gives them related gifts, be it jackets or snowboard boots or really thick socks. Maybe this is like moms offering to take their daughters shopping. Men just offer sporting outings. My parents offer me free produce to get me to come home.

I've come to benefit from this, though. I think if I didn't enjoy skiing, that would be a major black mark for me in Josh's dad's book. Maybe he'd start scheduling ski trips on weekends specified for singles at the ski lodge, hoping to introduce his son to a more ski-friendly girl.

Over Christmas, Josh's dad rented a condo at Snowshoe Mountain, West Virginia. At that point, I hadn't skied in about ten years, the last time being a middle school field trip. I was incredibly apprehensive about the trip. Sure, I'd been a decent skier at fourteen. But I was convinced that I was going to be an albatross on the whole trip. Have you ever seen an albatross try to ski? All the other members of our party would spend all their time waiting on Josh's dumb girlfriend, and no one would have any fun. They'd be able to swoosh, swoosh, swoosh down the mountain while I tried to get up after falling while getting off the ski lift.

As we geared up and walked out to the slopes, I felt ready to just sit down and create little frozen teardrops. I was terrified of ruining the ski trip for everyone else, while Josh was scared that I wasn't going to enjoy myself. That's just the silly kind of worry circle that people in relationships make.

After one run down the mountain, I was magically fine. I realized that skiing was not that hard. I might even venture to say that it comes fairly naturally to me, despite the fact that walking down the stairs occasionally does not come naturally to me. My excuse for my success is that I don't take very many risks - I am careful to go at reasonable speeds. Josh's dad calls me a "deliberate skier." Watch out, I'm skiing...on purpose.

A couple weekends back, I again got a free lift ticket. I'm starting to think about buying my own skis now that it looks like I'll be skiing more than once every ten years. Sporting equipment is unshockingly common at yard sales and thrift stores, and rental fees are no joke. Josh's dad even bought me a pair of ski goggles. I felt like one of the family.