back in the saddle

I did it! I went skiing for the first time since Daddy Blake and I learned I was pregnant. It's been 3-4 years (I'm not certain), and I think the long wait was wise, as it wasn't an emotional hurdle for me to go. I remembered how to get into my boots and such, which wasn't hard, but when you're not familiar with something, every little step seems so foreign and strange that you are confident you've just done it very wrong and therefore someone will die.

I found Molly and her friend at the ticket office and away we went! I got off the lift and blessedly, my body remembered how to turn and stop a short distance away (as opposed to sliding off and immediately tumbling down the mountain because I am out of practice). We started on some easy runs, and it was fabulous to remember how to do things like turn and stop, which I had taken quickly to when I first learned, but without practice, well, you just never know if something has changed. Like sex. It's been long enough I'm beginning to wonder if some radical new discovery has all my married friends doing it differently, and when I get back on THAT saddle, I'll find I'm hopelessly lost. (I bet I won't care!)

I had really never skied Bridger Bowl (the one time Reese & I went in high school does not count, as no one in their right mind would call what we did "skiing"), so I have nothing to compare it against. The lines seemed kind of long and the runs a little short because I'm used to Big Sky, but that was perfect. It gave me a chance to get rested while going up the lift, then hyperventilate and whoop all the way down, letting the down time in line take my heart rate back to safer levels.

I took a few spills, including one nasty one that has my shoulder and wrist kind of funked up, but all told, I am pretty proud of myself. Molly, while out of practice longer, had also been skiing since the age of three, so she looked all graceful and pretty gliding down the hill. I looked more like someone who knew the very general idea of what skiing looked like, but my arms and legs were not exactly obedient or fully under my control.

There was a TON of snow (in the places where those naughty snowboarders hadn't pushed it all off), which was great for falls, but it wasn't packed down enough for me to turn easily, especially on one particular hill JR (Molly's - and now my - friend) convinced us we could totally do. I will not repeat some of the words I used as I gingerly eased my way from one side of the bowl ALL THE WAY to the other, but by the time we were down, I had blood in my eye and was aiming to smack JR a good one. He evaded me easily, much like you could outrun a daddy-long-legs. On ice. With its feet weighted down.

Anyway, it was great fun. I got to know JR a little better and thoroughly enjoyed him. Molly and I got some good talking in just before we both passed out from sheer exhaustion, and I'm looking forward to my next time on the hill. Looks like I can go for $10 again NEXT Friday...now I just need to round up a friend who won't feel like it's a wasted day skiing with me on the greens and blues. Any takers?