From the mouth of babes

My parents wanted me to be into team sports. They must have felt that me being part of team sports was really important because in my childhood I played the following sports: soccer, basketball, sailling, tennis (one summer - before I was old enough to sail), baseball, softball, and hockey for a smidge. In high school I was on Varisty swimming, track, and sailing teams. I feel like I am missing something.... so there could be one more sport in that list. But I never liked them. I did like to sail, but I was petrified of it for many years. I was afraid to tip over because I didn't want my father to yell at me. He claims now that he didn't yell at me, but he would have. It wasn't until I had a self-righting boat that I stopped being afraid. But I really wasn't into racing. I'm not competitive. And if all the teams I was on as a kid didn't bring about competivenes, I will never be competitive. And I am okay with that. I don't think it's really that important. My family thinks otherwise and I have to defend my lack of competitiveness to them - but that is just who I am.

As a kid I always wanted to ski and ride horses. My mother never let me - I really didn't have time to ski with everything else I did. While I was more than willing to quit everything else that I did.... I was never allowed to quit any team sport. I didn't understand then why I was forced to play sports that I hated, and to be honest, I still don't understand. I do believe that it is good for children to be involved with organized sports, but forcing a child to play soccer from the time she is six until she is thirteen is a bit much. Especially if she was never any good. The only sport I was ever allowed to quit was hockey, and it I didn't even quit it. My mother just didn't sign me up one year. I think it's because she never really wanted me to play hockey in the first place.

I'm digressing. My point was I always wanted to ski and ride horses. And I was never allowed to do either as I did so many other things - 99% of them I didn't like. Since, you know, I wasn't into the whole "team sports" thing.

As a grown up I drove myself to a mountain and signed myself up for skiing lessons. And now skiing is a pretty big part of my life in the winter. I love skiing. I'm not great at it, but I love to do it. And in June, I will finally be taking horseback riding lessons. Only 3 lessons total, and there will only be about 2.5 hours of riding time for 6 hours of lessons, but I guess you have to crawl before you can walk.

So as a child I begged my parents to ski and ride. I never got to. As an adult, what do I do for fun? Ski and learning to ride.

Maybe I wasn't crazy after all!