GAINING CONFIDENCE

I’m going skiing for the first time. Stand on two boards down a hill; it’ll be a piece of cake!

I tug on my rental ski boots, strap on my skis and clutch two poles, one in each hand. My family starts to glide over to our instructor and I begin to follow. I’m moving very slowly and cautiously along when I reach a slight decline in the sparkling, white snow. I suddenly start to move faster and straight towards an orange fence.

“I don’t know how to stop!” I shriek as the barricade comes closer and closer.

“Turn your skis in!” my step-dad calls. He’s the only one who has been skiing before and I have no control of how fast I’m going. I can barely stay on my skis and it takes a lot of thigh muscle, of which I don’t have, to keep from performing the middle splits.

That fence is looking pretty friendly. CRASH! I am a young intelligent student and I’m presently lying smack down on my back attached to an obnoxious, neon orange, unstable net barrier. What a way to start off the day. I slowly detach myself from the disgrace of a fence and begin to crawl toward the rest of my family.

That’s right, crawl.

The hour-and-a-half lesson drags on as I slowly become aware that you can, in fact, balance on two skis. Now it’s time for the bunny hill, or as I like to call it, the biggest hill I’ve ever seen!

I mastered getting on and off the ski lift and I come to a halt before the descent. I peer over the edge to see how many depressions I could kill myself on when I slowly and uncontrollably realize that I am beginning to slide forward.

In a flash I forget everything I was just taught, funny how that tends to happen. I begin to pick up speed a lot faster than I intended to, and when I think that I’ve made it to the bottom, here comes another slope.

I fly onto my butt as one of my skis rips from my boot and as my ski poles fly in the air like missiles. I just lay there and stare at the bloodless, blue sky just hoping that for some bizarre reason, no one saw my huge wipeout.

“Are you okay,” asks my mom as she smoothly comes to a halt beside me.

“Sadly, yes,” I announce as I, for the second time, gather myself together. Retrieving my self-esteem, I hop back onto the ski lift.

I regained my confidence a grand total of eight times that day, and I’ve never been skiing since.