This holiday season, my husband and I went skiing. We chose Wolf Creek, Colorado, which has some of the best powder in the Rockies. It’s “no frills” skiing: there’s no fancy lodge, no ski-in, ski-out options, and people come because they’re serious. They’re willing to navigate a terrifying hairpin mountain pass that’s hours from anything. They don’t come to be seen or browse in fancy shops, because there are none. It’s hard core, and the best you can hope for is an overpriced burger and some hot chocolate. The last time we skied there, we giggled like little kids the whole day. It was perfect for us.
Growing up in Vermont and spending my doctoral days in Colorado, I went skiing nearly every weekend each winter. It felt free like nothing else, and literally “getting above it all” gave me a lovely sense of perspective. Plus, time in nature has a spiritual component to me.
A bit has changed since our last ski trip in March 2021. That September, I ruptured my right patellar tendon falling down two stairs simply because I wasn’t looking where I was going. I spent five weeks in bed after surgery, didn’t walk unaided for three months, and spent a total of 7 months in grueling physical therapy. My husband had a hip replacement in May 2022. We’re not as young as we once were, but we’re not old either. Our surgeons gave us the green light to do pretty much anything we wanted, including hitting the slopes. So off we went, nearly giddy with excitement.
For months though, I’d wondered how many more years of skiing I had left in me. Each year has become progressively more painful, and I found myself icing my knees at the end of each ski day in 2021. Arthritis in my knees doesn’t so much limit my movement as limit movement without pain, so I knew it was coming. My surgeon had expressed surprise that there’s so little cartilage left at such a young age, but told me I could do whatever I could “tolerate.”
It became clear on my very first run that this was my last year, maybe my last day of skiing. Every turn hurt. There was no joy. Except for a few moments of thinking, “well, those few seconds weren’t so bad,” I found myself just wishing for it to be over. The realization on the mountain was immediate and painful on every level: this was it. It was my last time skiing, ever. This run, on this perfect day, was the last one of my life.
We got down to the bottom of the mountain and I burst into tears. My sweet husband was surprised when I said, “I don’t think I should go up again.” I took off my skis, told him to have fun without me, and made my way into the warming hut. I’m glad he went back out, because I needed to process this reality, and I wanted him to enjoy what I couldn’t.
In meditation we talk a great deal about acceptance of what is, at any given moment. We humans have a tendency to try to hang onto whatever is good (known as “grasping”) and push away whatever is bad (“aversion”). Doing either makes our lives harder. Who, after all, can hang onto something enjoyable? Like everything else, it won’t endure. And how successful are we ever at pushing away, avoiding, or ignoring discomfort? If anything, doing so often makes painful realities worse. At the very least, you have to face them at some point.
Sitting in the lodge at Wolf Creek, I had a choice. I could try to grasp a few more pleasant moments of skiing by getting back up on the mountain and risking injury, or at the very least, enduring inevitably more pain. Or I could pretend that losing something I’ve loved since I was a kid wasn’t really happening.
Instead, I went through all the stages of grief. Shock had hit me on the mountain, so I moved right into anger. How dare my stupid knees betray me like this?! Then I bargained: maybe just one more run would be ok. Maybe I can make it the rest of the day, if I’m really slow and careful. It was depressing to realize that was probably not the wisest choice. I wasn’t willing to put myself through more pain and risk seriously hurting myself.
Acceptance actually came quite quickly. This was the way of things: for everything there is a season. It was nice to hear from my hubby that, on my one and only run that day, a father and his daughter were tracking me down the hill. My form was still solid enough to model, even though it hurt like the blazes. That took the sting out a bit, I’ll confess.
Just because I can’t ski anymore doesn’t mean I can’t ice skate or cross-country ski or snowshoe. The important thing for this Vermont girl to have at least once a year is time in the snow, and I can still do that. I just need to do it differently from now on.
What in your life might you need to accept before you can move forward? Can you look truth in the face, and make another path?