A Humbling Experience

I flew down the icy slope on the school’s last ski trip of the year. My ears were stinging with cold because I wasn’t wearing a hat, and my ego was about as high as one can go. I was in no danger; I hadn’t fallen at all that season, and had been skiing down black diamonds. I didn’t have anything to worry about, or so I thought.



It was my last run before I was stopping for lunch. Three ski patrol guys had been following behind me the entire run, and I decided it was time to show off a little. After all, they are the best of us normal, non-competition skiers.



I had tried skiing backwards once before that day, and it had worked out fine. I desperately wanted to learn how to really well. So I thought, ok, why not show them that I can ski backwards, because though flying down the slopes is my real talent, I didn’t have enough room to really get going.



So, around I turned. For about the first five seconds it went well. Then, the back of my skis got tangled together (and remember, the back of my skis were in front of my body) and down I fell, tumbled, and rolled. After processing what had just happened, I just laid there. I could have gotten up, but now that I was down, the snow felt nice, and I was really comfortable too.



I had forgotten all about the ski patrols when I fell, until they skied over to me and started asking me questions to make sure my brain was all right. I was very glad that they didn’t know who I was, until the one asking the questions asked me my name and where I was from. Then, well, they knew who I was…but it was still all good because I’ll probably never see them again. They told me if my head hurt at all later to stop skiing and go down to the first aid station. I nodded, still kind of dazed that I had fallen at all. Then I got up, and went in to eat lunch. And because nobody had seen me fall, I had to tell them all what happened. And they laughed.