I love to water ski. It is one of my favorite things to do. It’s hard to beat a day out on the lake, out in the sun, skiing until you feel as if your arms are going to fall off from exhaustion. Well, maybe not fall off, but you get my point. Also allow me to clarify what I mean when I say “water skiing.” I do not mean one ski for each foot, being towed behind the boat at a low speed and enjoying the scenery from behind the boat. I mean both feet in one ski, flying behind the boat at break-neck speed, with everything flying by so fast that you don’t have time to enjoy the scenery — slalom skiing.

Slalom skiing has been one of my loves for many years. My grandparents used to live on a large lake in north Texas, and every summer that I can remember, until I graduated from high school, we would spend one or two weeks at the lake. There were many other things that we did at the lake: hiking, swimming, fishing, etc. But skiing was always my favorite.

I learned how to ski on two skis when I was 9 or 10, but as you can probably tell from my previous description, I was not even close to satisfied. I wanted to go faster. So by the time I was 12 or 13, I was trying my hand on the slalom. My parents and siblings probably got pretty tired of watching me zip back and forth across the wake of the boat, but I just loved being back there. I would improve my technique a little bit each summer, and my confidence grew in direct proportion to the speed I was traveling. The faster I went, the more I loved it.

When I got to college, I worked at summer camps as a boat driver and water ski instructor. This was a pretty sweet gig: I got to teach kids how to do something that I loved to do, and I got to spend a little time behind the boat myself. And as much as I love to ski, there are no words to describe the feeling that I would get each time one of my campers was able to get up on skis for the first time. I’m guessing I will have many more moments like those when I become a parent, but seeing the exhilaration on a kid’s face as you swing the boat around to pick him back up is absolutely priceless. I loved those summers. Whether it was teaching kids or skiing on my own, I was living the dream.

About this time last year, I began to feel as if I had awoken from that dream. The reality of life began to set in after finishing with graduate school, and the prospects of me doing any skiing in the future were not looking good. This was a sad realization. I mean, slalom skiing had become so much more than just something I love to do. It had come to represent who I was, and how I want to live my life. I want to go flying across the boat wake of life, back and forth, throwing myself full-throttle into the path that lies before me. And I thought that was slipping away.

So I bought a slalom ski. A nice one, too. It had all of the features that I could have possibly wanted, but I won’t bore you with those details. Just trust me: it was awesome. I thought that if I spent the money on it, I would make more of an effort to get out to the lake; that has not been the case. I have used it a grand total of one time. Pathetic, I know.

But it has also allowed me to have a different sort of realization: I can’t spend all of my time behind the boat. There has to be a significant amount of time spent in the boat, and this time is just as important as the time that I spend actually skiing. It’s breathing deeply, letting the wind hit you in the face and take your breath away, and the time that you spend with your family and friends that really makes that lake trip worth all of the time and effort.

I still have that ski, and I intend to get a lot more use out of it in the future. Only now it has a slightly deeper significance. While I will always love the thrill of riding a slalom ski, I have learned that there are many things in life that can be thrilling and fulfilling. I’m not sure exactly what this means for me yet, but at least it’s a start. I firmly believe that life is not to be attacked at break-neck speed by yourself behind a boat, but rather to be relished and shared with others who can help you see the beauty around you.

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