Jen and I had known each other for about a year and a half, both of us graduate students in the master’s program in psychology at Western Washington University. I’d asked her out a few times, but like so many other men like me (that is to say, neither a bad boy, nor particularly hot), she had relegated me to her “friend zone”. But after about a year of spending time together in group activities, seeing movies, cooking vegetarian meals for her, and helping her with her statistics homework, she had a change of heart. My long game worked.
We’d been dating for about six months, and things were going well. We got along, we had fun together, we had the same friends, enjoyed many of the same activities, and even the meetings of our respective families had gone pretty well. That is, until we took a ski trip together.
I’m a very poor downhill skier. Don’t have very good control or coordination. I had done cross-country skiing for years, but I suck at downhill. She wanted to go, though, so I wanted to take her. In retrospect, I think I was afraid she would consider me too geeky if I didn’t want to go. This seems strange to me now; in all the time we’ve known each other, I doubt there was ever a day that she didn’t know exactly how geeky I am. But that kind of insight takes time. For geeks like me, anyway.
We drove up to the Mt Baker ski resort, about 60 miles east of Bellingham, early on that Sunday morning. My recollection of the day is that it was gray and slick. Not great ski weather and even worse for driving windy mountain roads in the tinny Toyota Tercel I owned at the time. By the time we got there, I was already nervous and a bit worn out from the drive. Of course, I said nothing. Mustn’t be a geek.
The first hour or so went okay. We did several runs and I started to have fun. Too much fun, apparently, since I was paying attention to everything around me except for her location. I followed too closely behind her, failing to notice her sudden stop until it was too late. I plowed into her with my full weight, tackling her into the snow. She couldn’t get up afterwards. She was conscious and she could move her legs, but she couldn’t stand. And she was in a lot of pain.
For weeks afterwards I kept seeing the image of the crash in my dreams, replaying like a looped video in my head. I can even see that image now, if I think about it. But the rest is mostly a blur: getting down the hill by snowmobile...driving her down the mountain...getting her to the hospital...calling her mother to tell her about the accident...mostly all gone (thankfully!).
Fortunately, things turned out pretty well. Two months later, we ran a 10K together. She forgave me for the accident and (after several years) so did her mother. We moved to Pennsylvania together about six months later, and life went on. Now, on the anniversary of the event, I send her an E-card with a photo of Elvis Presley to commemorate Pelvis day.
But I absolutely hate to ski. And my criteria for evaluating ski trips have changed. Nobody hospitalized is a good day on the slopes.
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