“Enjoy yourself. It’s later than you think.” ~Chinese Proverb
Spoiler Alert! I’ve been limping around airports all morning stopping every few feet to massage my right hip. For some inexplicable reason my right shoulder is aching as well and then there’s the wrist problem. No matter because I had fun. In every sense of the word I enjoyed, I smiled, played, fell on my butt and kept on keeping on.
Rewind to about a month ago when I ran into a colleague while in the break room to grab eyeglass cleaner and cold medicine. She asked what I had planned for the weekend and I shrugged. Nothing. She looked at me dismayed and said that she figured I’d be going to some amazing party somewhere that no one knew about. No. I was going to do some amazing cleaning and sleeping and I was going to rock my Netflix queue. She shook her head because here I was this 28 year old woman. Childless. Single. Completely free. And I was going to spend my weekend scrubbing my kitchen floor. This could not stand, man. She told me that I really needed to…you know…get out more. To be adventurous. I’d still have fun later, she said, even married with children but it would be a different kind of fun. Right now I have everything at my fingertips and as I write those words I forget how true that is. I get so caught up in the day-to-day and trying to keep my shit together even when my brain doesn’t want to cooperate so I forget about just living. It sounds so cliche but the thing about cliches is that they’re often true. So, I thanked her and the following week I decided that during my trip to Utah for Alt I would go snowboarding.
Now would be a good time to mention that I am a creature of habit. I eat the same things and go to the same restaurants almost everyday to the point where it’s like Cheers and everyone know my name. I have a favorite bartender and a favorite drink. I drive the same route to work. Talk to the same people. I like the routine and with bipolar disorder I need it. That said, I’ve become the most boring person you will ever meet in life. I mean, I know I can make things sound super exciting with all the exclamation points and OMGGUESSWHOIJUSTSAW in the world but damn. Not much is going on over here. For me to step outside of my comfort zone would be all great leap forward and shit. So…I just did it.
I, Heather Barmore, was going to do something I had never done before and was totally fucking terrified of. I did it. It was thrilling. I didn’t, like, become a new person so yeah, during my first run I panicked at the top of the mountain and promptly walked down the side to a lodge and took a shuttle – snowboard in hand – back to the lift but still. I tried. I took a lesson, I got on that snowboard and I made that sucker my bitch and I have a bruise on my ass to prove it.
It was awesome.
*Huge shout out to Solitude Resort and Alt for the lift tickets and good time. And instructor Mike for being very patient and telling me that I looked cool while riding.
