Don't Go Skiing With Your Boyfriend

Why I annually cry on the side of a mountain.

Me skiing alone aka slowly, peacefully, and happily.

Long before I was crying upside down on the side of a mountain in the Alps, I was crying upside down on the side of a mountain in Utah, legs forming an obtuse angle, one ski on and one ski several yards uphill, my boyfriend standing over me not to console but to say “I thought you said you could ski.”

I’m mad that in my moment of weakness he is mad. He’s mad that in his moment of ski I am not ski. I ask how he can say something so mean at such a time. He asks how I could lie about my skiing ability. I tell him I clearly can ski, just not well. He says if I can’t ski well, I can’t ski.

Now, if I had a shred of self esteem back then I would have told him where he could shove his skis, jumped back on a plane, and never skied again. But I didn’t, so I sob-explained to him that I DID know how to ski, I skied growing up, I could do intermediate runs, I wasn’t afraid, I could actually stop. Between the ages of 11 and 31 I stopped skiing and …