Reality Check

When I was 14 during my freshman year of high school, I almost lost the friendship between me and my best friend because I was being a bad friend. As a 14-year-old with an underdeveloped brain, I was very emotionally immature with anger issues. This would cause me to say hurtful things and display jealousy, and I would even guilt trip/manipulate to get my way. My emotional immaturity would eventually lead to getting severely humbled after I had ruined a fun day/trip for everyone.

My best friend, Mateja, and I were each other’s snowboard buddies. We had been snowboarding together for about a year at this point. We started snowboarding together in 8th grade. We are both seniors in high school now and continue to snowboard. We learned how to snowboard at a local ski resort called Lost Valley. We have been going to Lost Valley since 8th grade and it’s because it’s cheaper. It’s about $50 for a day ticket, and it got boring and repetitive very fast since it’s so small. So we wanted to find a different resort to visit for a day. The one we decided on was called Titcomb Mountain in a town much farther away than our “go-to”. The ticket prices are cheaper than Lost Valley, ranging from $18-$38. I was very intimidated to go because instead of the super easy, piece-of-cake chair ski lifts, they have things called “T-lifts” which were originally designed for skiers. They are very old school and have an archaic design. The reason I was intimidated by these is because you can not sit on them or put your body weight on them. They look like an upside-down T with the body of the T held on by a large spring and the arm of the T being two pieces of 2x4s. Skiers can lean on them facing forward, while we snowboarders have to somehow swing our loose leg over one of the 2x4s and it “drags” us up the mountain sideways. Keep in mind, that this all has to happen very fast while the lifts are coming directly at you at 5mph. If you’re like me, you will either miss the lift entirely, get on it, and fall off, or get your board stuck on it and be dragged up the mountain on your back.

Since we didn’t have a car or a license, we needed someone to come with us, so our moms came. They neither ski nor snowboard so they decided to snowshoe. Mateja and I geared up and headed for the lifts. We both had trouble getting on the T lifts. Eventually, Mateja got the hang of getting on the T lifts. I was jealous that Mateja could do it so quickly, while I continued to struggle. Seeing that she got the hang of it and not me, I got extremely upset and began to cry after what I felt like an hour of trying. I lost all hope for myself and went inside to grab a snack and calm down. Mateja followed me and I told her to go back to the mountain and have fun without me. She came inside with me and tried to cheer me up by telling me it was okay but I continued to mope.

After calming down for a bit, I eventually was able to get on the T lift. I was ecstatic to get to the top of the mountain. Ignoring the nasty T lifts, the mountain and trails were nice and fun. There was this massive jump that intimidated both of us but we gave it a try regardless. It was difficult since we were still beginners and had a hard time maneuvering our boards. After some trial and error, we were at least able to get past it while failing to land but that doesn’t make it any less fun. The annoying aspect about the jump is that you could only go on it once every run. I got to the point where I landed the jump once and I felt like I could do anything. That was the most fun I had in a long time. We moved on to a black diamond trail which if you didn’t know, is the hardest type of trail there is. The part that dictated the skill level was probably the fact that it was in the woods and you had to go over roots and branches. We thought it wasn’t that hard.

After a while, I got bored of doing the same trails over and over for hours, so I decided that I wanted to go home. This is still normal behavior for me because I get bored of things very easily. I told Mateja that I was going to hang out inside the lodge and she could continue up and down the mountain til she was ready to leave. She said that she didn’t want to snowboard alone and that the entire point of us going together was so that we could have fun together. My mom agreed and told me to go back up the mountain with her. This struck of nerve in me because no one agreed with me and back when I was 14, I didn’t take criticism well. I expressed that I didn’t want to and that I was going to go sit and wait because I was tired. Mateja’s mom told my mom that it was fine if I sat inside. My mom disagreed with her and said that I should go because “they went out of their way to have fun with us”. After some back and forth, Mateja gave in and said she wanted to go home as well. I remember getting mad at this because I already felt like I had ruined the entire day for everyone. The whole ride home was almost fully silent and very awkward. I had felt like the worst person on the face of the Earth.

We got to my house to swap vehicles, and I went inside without even saying goodbye. As soon as my mom got inside, she began to let out all of her anger. She expressed how embarrassed she was of me and that she’d be surprised if I had her as a friend after that. As I was sobbing in my room, I texted both Mateja and her mom expressing how sorry I was and they both forgave me, even if they didn’t want to, which is understandable.

To this day, I am still embarrassed by the things I said and did. In a way, I regret it because I still feel ashamed, but I can’t fully regret it because that very day made me into the person I am now. Mateja and I are closer than ever, as well as me and her mom/family. That day was the biggest reality check and most humbling experience I’ve ever had.

“Kevin’s Strapless Snowboard” by Uncleweed is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.