Jessica Grier

Winter weekends in my household were spent driving two hours northbound, and spending the day on the snow covered mountain. The first time I wore a pair of skis, I was three years old. I would race down the slopes with my parents yelling for me to stop, the only positions I knew were “pizza” and “french fry”. At nine years old, my dad grew tired of skiing and switched himself, my brother, and me to snowboarding. My dad grew up skiing. During his time serving in the air force, he was stationed in Utah, and he skied every weekend. I guess after forty years of spending every weekend doing the same activity, he was ready to change things up. While I got a hang of snowboarding relatively quickly, I stopped doing tricks in the park at 11. I was still very brave at this age, and believed to my core that I was invincible. I was on a rail right beneath the ski lift, and happened to fall off. There was a group of older boys above me on the lift who saw and proceeded to laugh and point at me. I remember how red my face became, and how upset I felt the rest of the week. I did not try another rail or jump for 5 years. While I spent most of my teenage years too embarrassed to try tricks again for fear of being laughed at, I did continue to snowboard often, whether or not it was my own choice. I watched other families go to the beach for their holidays. Instead, my family and I would pack up and go to the Rockies, do a tour of the national parks, and go snowboarding. I grew to appreciate this, however. During winter breaks, my brother and I would drive up together and snowboard for the day, it was one of the few times I would see him while he was away at college. Now that I am so far from home, going to the slope is a cherished time for me, and one of the few times throughout the year I spend with my entire family.