Day #11-Suck it, downhill fear.

Snowboarding!! I've never gone skiing or anything like that. Sledding was my closest resume experience. I feel I have to preface this: I am terrified of heights (or so I thought??) Actually, I am terrified of cycling downhill. I see one of these:

And I want to die. Literally. Complete and utter panic attack. Dry mouth, nausea, probably stars. When I get to the bottom of the hill I can actually breath again. (If you've never had a panic attack, I don't recommend, they aren't fun).

What I was surprised at (besides the number of times I fell down) was that I was NOT afraid of the downhill while snowboarding. I was more frustrated with my inability to turn smoothly and create those cool s-curves that you see on TV (or that I saw the 3-year old kids doing while they passed me). My goal was to get down the hill (THAT was a bunny slope?!!) falling as little as possible. Well, the first time I'm pretty sure I fell every two feet and didn't realize this was equivalent to doing squats for 4 hours. But I DID it. And I loved the view from the gondola/lift.

Yes, this is how you start (magic carpet without any ironic drug references).

A note to friends who told me I should never do this because of my fear of heights (well-intentioned I am sure) as well as to myself for enabling/perpetuating this vision of me and believing it: SHOVE IT. How long did I put this off because I had created this belief/allowed others to create it that I couldn't handle it? F* that.

I may not be good (ok, definitely not good) but I even went up on the ski lift and got off with my board and floated (mostly) smoothly off (thanks instructor).


Views like this are what you get when you start to conquer your fears:

The funny part? I will probably do it again! I want to get better at it. More lessons for sure. And more time on the bunny slope ;-)