Lessons from the Doctor

But the lesson here is that even though I’m envious of those other skier people (the star bellied sneetches, as it were), I don’t want to be them. I don’t want to blindly follow someone around the bc and just believe them when they say that the slope is safe to ski. I want to make that decision for myself – to be able to make that decision for myself.

Maybe I should take another avy course. Or maybe I should just start skiing more with the exceptional resources in the Wasatch – the men and women who’ve skied these shots for decades.

Something I know for sure: I probably shouldn’t tour so much with Brad. As much as I love and adore him, the differences in our skiing abilities and goals are so great that they compromise our time together. While he knows the Wasatch intimately, I get lost trying to find the elusive (not really) Powder Park. While I’m trampling shrubbery in Big Cottonwood (still looking for Powder Park), he’s doing boulder problems in ski boots to gain access to a ridgeline.

Plus, he’s bored on the tours I enjoy (most recently, my favorite tour was Spruces to Reynolds Trees to Big Water to Reynolds Shoulder to Tom’s Hill to the Weather Station and back to Spruces – he might have died of boredom had he been along. As it was, he was lapping Days Fork).

I took part in the aforementioned tour on Sunday with these ladies:


Susan and Lizzie are two of my very favorite new friends (Lizzie is the mother of Moxie, who many of you know), and it occurred to me on that tour that had I been with Brad, I’d have cut our time short. I’d have caused some sort of scene and demanded that we bail early.

I don’t know why, exactly, I do that – why I’m less competent and capable with him around. More dramatic and needy. My only explanation is that I’m just so used to him taking care of me – reminding me how to get from one place to another, reminding me of people’s names, reminding me that he loves me no matter how batshit crazy I am at the time…..

The drama needs to stop. I know that it’s important to help one another through things, important to be able to rely on each other, but lately (always?) I seem to have been relying on Brad far more than is reasonable, or expected, or – as is evidenced from being totally fine and psyched on Sunday - necessary.

I am not a star-bellied Sneetch. And that's ok.