Sledding at Thirteen Versus Thirty

I took as long of a walk as my wind-stung face could stand after we finished Christmas today. I was trying to clear my mind and wanted to see the trees and bushes covered with powdery snow. I love that part of snow; all of the trees look like little kids bundled in their "Michelin Man" snowsuit, with their limbs all jutted out at strange angles, unable to move them because of their thick, swaddled layers. This morning, the snow looked especially beautiful. No shovels or tracks had marred the patch of snow outside my apartment and the swirling patterns traced by the wind reminded me of that picture of a desert landscape, with beautiful designs shaped by nature in the sand that so many people use as computer wallpaper. Taking in the scenery, I noticed a bunch of kids screaming and laughing as they catapulted down the hill on all sorts of plastic sleds. I started to feel a bit envious, wishing I had brought a sled of my own. I remember when I used to go sledding for hours until I couldn't feel my toes and fingers and even with a hot chocolate (with extra marshmallows, of course) warming my belly, a shower hours later still felt like a million needles prickling my skin.

Sledding near my parent's house was the ultimate experience. We lived near a dam, and for a few years when I was a teenager, it was legal to sled down the double hill. This "hill of terror", as I used to think of it when I first started sledding around age 8 or 9, consisted of the first hill, which was at about a 45 degree angle and seemed like it was a mile long (more like about 50 yards). After making it down this hill, there was a flat patch about 10 yards wide and then a second hill, much steeper, but also much shorter. The whole thing ended in a ditch that was usually half frozen and still filled with water. We often built ramps on the flat part, which always resulted in a huge laugh for those watching and inevitable pain or snow burn for the person attempting to perform amazing aerial tricks that often ended in America's Funniest Videos moments. We used to sled relentlessly, creating new tracks when the old ones had worn thin and stalks of grass and reeds struggled to regain their ground. The worst part was obviously trekking back up the giant hill to do it all over again. After a few hikes up, a trail was usually built and you could find decent foot-holds, but this stretch of hill began to seem like Mount Everest in a surprisingly short amount of time. I was young, though, and I can even remember the adrenaline rush from sledding that would allow me to JOG up the hill at times, giving myself the challenge of beating our dog to the top of the hill. Though we often fantasized about building a make-shift ski lift, we always made the trek back up, time and time again. The trip back down was always worth the trip back up.

However, as I have mentioned before, my perspective is slowly changing as I get older. Flash forward to seventeen years later: my friend from New Orleans had never gone sledding before, so I giddily suggested we go. I couldn't wait; all of my past memories of hours of fun and laughter and adrenaline rushes made me don my snowsuit, gloves, hat, and extra socks in minutes, with a trip to the parents to pick up sleds following soon after. After getting my friend, we found a mild-looking hill on a local golf course with a few families and children already sledding and hit the hill. At first, I was really disappointed. The sleds weren't nearly as fast as I had remembered and this time I had a strange new sensation: worrying about how big my butt looked in the air and how slow I was moving as I awkwardly meandered down the hill on top of a big inner tube. By the time I reached the bottom of the hill, I was downtrodden, but ready to try it again. I just need to get a good groove built, I thought, and then I'll be flying down the hill again like I remember in no time. The best way to get a good track started is to just keep sledding over the top of the same path, but in order to do this, you have to get back to the top of the hill.

At this point, it is probably important that I admit that I have an awful love/hate relationship with lit sticks filled with tobacco. It seems strange to love something so nasty, but that is why they call it an addiction, I guess. Either way, at 30, after smoking for cough years, this "mild-looking" hill very quickly became K2 in the Alps. Seriously, I had to stop twice on the way up the hill just to catch my breath and cough out some of the fresh air spoiling my smoke-craved lungs. Needless to say, this part kind of ruined the whole "fun" of sledding for me. I tried going down a few more times and had a few brief rushes of the excitement I felt as a kid, but just the thought of trekking back up the hill with kids and grown adults striding past me, giving me the "I feel sorry for you" look, made our day sledding come to a rather short halt.

My friend also felt the same way: if you didn't do it as a kid, getting back up the hill is no longer worth going down it. I don't think this applies to life for most adults, but it does make me realize that some things are just more fun when you are a kid. Don't get me wrong, I still finger paint and play with Play-Doh regularly, but there are just some things I don't feel comfortable doing any more as a grown adult, no matter how much I think I want to. However, I think that is one reason I'm getting excited about being an Aunt and possibly having kids of my own one day; that way I will have an excuse to be like a kid again while I'm playing with them, or better yet, for an out-of-shape person like me, just a way to enjoy the activity vicariously through them and their boundless energy.