The Elephant in the Room: Post-summit soreness reflections

I am sitting in seat 20A of a United Airlines flight home to New York from Denver. Luckily, I conned my dad out of the window seat, so I get the lovely pleasure of looking out on the miles upon miles of farmland that the western United States has to offer. My family flew out to Colorado for spring break to go skiing with my brother, Robby, who recently graduated college and decided to move his life to Boulder. I admire how he decided to live somewhere 1,000 miles away from home. He picked a place that he wanted to live and he straight up went there. He didn’t have anything figured out except for an I’ll-figure-it-out-when-I-get-there mentality, packed up and drove across the country with no hesitations. I wish that I were able to follow my gut as clearly and directly as he does.

Being a Tolette means that there is no hope of a relaxing beach vacation, not ever. You can expect movement until every inch of your body is aching. The past six days, we woke up to get to various mountains before first chair and skied straight through until the last chair of the day, with only a quick stop to scarf down lunch. Tolettes don’t quit until they are bruised, battered or end up with a torn ACL, and maybe don’t even quit then. I would classify Robby as a textbook adrenaline junkie. He gets thrills for the most part from hurling himself down mountains at high speeds, whether it is on skis, snowboard or long board depending on the season.

An important rule that we have learned to adhere to is that one should never, ever call “last run” while skiing. It’s some sort of Murphy’s Law: in saying that it’s the last run of the day, if something were to go wrong, it will. These are the exact words that have landed my brother in surgery multiple times at the very end of ski vacations or skateboard races. He’s broken his wrist twice, his ankle, his elbow, and now tore his ACL throwing himself off a cliff on that last run of the day. The thing is, while those injuries may stop some people, it drives him forward with an even stronger conviction to do the things that makes him who he is. The first thing he said when he came back from the ER was that he was going to do the maximum amount of physical therapy allowed so that he could get back to doing the hiking, biking and downhill self-hurling that he loves so much as soon as possible.

This is the family that I was brought up in, and this never-quit mentality is ingrained into my blood and bones. When a Tolette gets beaten down, whether physically, mentally or otherwise, we push through the obstacle ahead and come out on the other side stronger. At the end of a day of skiing, you’re exhausted and aching, but so ready to do the exact same thing the next day. That’s kind of how I expect my life to go, and I’m okay with that.