7/18/2017 0 Comments Big White Ski Resortrecorded in March 2015 (so bear with me here): Today I skied down The Cliff (a run marked as a double black diamond, which I apparently forgot to include when I wrote this) (by myself) for the second time in my life and learnt a few things. At the start, I wasn't scared, I was excited. But after sliding down tentatively, the adrenaline rushed in and I became afraid. I tried to turn my skis around t gain momentum and start making turns but that was easier said than done. I had to ski backward (??) through some really thick snow. At one point, I sat down and just panicked but I talked myself into getting back up and calming down. Slowly but surely, I went on turning because I soon realized the only option I had was to get through this and head to the bottom. For a long time even after I was finished, my body was shaking and my palm were huffing and puffing. In life, when you hit rough patches, it can be hard to pick yourself up. Especially when you're the only one looking out for yourself. Turning around and making the best of a situation you can't escape is almost always the only option. The sad part is that even after you feel like you've gotten over or through something, you aren't the same. Wether it's a fear of trust, a broken heart, or sweaty palms. Today I learnt that I can talk myself through something until I can live with it. We're all a bit shook, but we're alright.
okaaay now moving on from my 15 year old's self so-called wisdom, I wrote the following on March 12th 2016, as a means of reflection... It has been almost a full year, or 365 days, since I have felt these feelings, thought these thoughts, and written these words. The bulk of the message is still very relevent and I am quite confident that it remain this way for rest of my life. However, I can't help but want to record the fact that being changed by trauma or simply an unfolding of events that one has never had to face, is not necessarily a sad thing. I believe it is what make us substantial, human, alive, interesting, and maybe even passionate. It has impacts on all areas of our lives that follow. The way I see it right now, there is an incredibly beautiful sense of honestly in the ability to accept struggle/pain. Perhaps all the more beautiful is the ability to stay soft in a world this cruel. To be kind and to love. It is brave to ski down The Cliff a third time, in spite of knowing the fear and aftertaste that lies ahead. aaand now we're here. back to the present; or what was the future last year and the past of tomorrow. wrote this lil' blurb on March 24th 2017. Yesterday I had the pleasure of bringing my younger sister onto The Cliff. My family has had the chance to visit this resort for a decade now. In past years, I was always eager to ski my heart out every single day of our vacation, always looking to be the youngest to achieve certain feats. Last year, I went as far as to set out to ski all 118 marked runs the mountain holds. It was intense, let's put it that way. This year, something felt kind of different. I might even have to admit that my long time thrill at the thought of skiing has diminished. First off, you have to understand that I'm an ocean kiddo through & through... bring on the tropical heat that most people so often can't stand, the high tide for surfing, and heaps of mangoes, kind of deal. Having said that, I decided to stick to mostly unchallenging terrain. But you know what, I didn't mind at all. It turns out that mornings as beautiful as these ones are sometimes better spent breathing the fresh scent of mountain air that seems to have been the only constant throughout these past 10 years. It seems that I no longer feel a need for the constant exhilaration that used to strike me as worth it in the long run. I am content to stop in the middle of a unhurried slope to take it all in and just breathe. In a similar fashion, it appears as though the past 2-3 years of my time on this planet have been spent with little to no time dedicated to catching my breath. The course of events that took place during this period, all too often left me feeling utterly terrified of the speed at which things change, indescribably alone/hopeless when it came to comprehending my major depression, and prompted me to move from feeling disgustingly numb to feeling everything all too deeply/unhealthily. In the rare moments where I did stop and convince myself that I had made peace with the realities that traumatized me to radical extents, before you knew it I was back to sprinting full speed ahead forgetting to warmup or even fail to listen to my heart screaming out something along the lines of "wait can't we just be still a while and focus on me????". This time around I learnt that there's a happy medium between being substantial, human, alive, interesting, passionate, accepting of struggle, and plain old healthy contentment. I've learnt that I can survive The Cliff, but if the simpler avenue has me wanting it to go on forever, why constantly choose the option that leaves me with shaky knees? Yes, the ability to stay soft in a world this cruel is strong. But I haven't been able to focus solely on the soft in far too long, so who's gonna stop me from hanging out here a while? Life has been tremendously good since, I can tell you that for free.
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...................having been blessed with a multitude of adventures abroad while growing up, it is this toolbox that entices me to write about what I believe to be the sole purchase one can make whilst simultaneously enriching who they are. |