I’m going skiing in the morning.

Growing up, I was dragged out of my bed at 6 am Saturday and Sunday during the winter by my dad; he is a first chair to last chair kind of guy. He always has beef jerky in his front jacket pocket for lunch. My sister and I always thought we had won the lottery on days where we convinced him to buy us hot chocolate and fries in the lodge afterwards. That lodge always smelled like 60 year old sweat and something wafting up from the bathroom downstairs. MRG, ski it if you can!

It wasn’t until college when I found that skiing could be enjoyable with friends; what a foreign concept to me. I could get a beer in the lodge after? I could take 30 minutes and eat lunch? While I credit my dad for giving me the steezy skill set to show a bunch of jersey-sporting, PBR-carrying boys that I could handle myself in the woods, I was able to rediscover how much I loved skiing when I was with my friends.

Here’s where it gets a little tricky. Yes, it involves my ex. Yeah, yeah, I know I bring him up a lot (we’re working on that). When we first started hanging out, it was the deadass middle of winter, and what else is there to do but yeet yourself down a mountain?? Slowly but surely, I showed him all my favorite ski spots in the woods over the course of an entire season. He kept up, showed me some new tricks, and one time even rescued me when I face-planted into a stream. And then that was it, we stopped talking and when I went back to the mountain the next year, it felt like I was missing my ski buddy. Out of all my friends that I dragged along to the mountain with me, he always made me feel that someone was watching out for me.

Eventually I ran into him that next season and we reconnected through skiing. I won’t lie (even though I’d love to), it felt even more intoxicating than all those Fireball nips that we’d shoot on the lift in college. There he was again, looking over his shoulder for me in the woods, digging me out of a tree, taking me to the park to watch me wreck myself on a rail for the first time. And then, yet again, it ended (for real this time).

I’m going to the mountain tomorrow. It’s a new season. I know he’ll be there, somewhere on the mountain. Maybe in my favorite spots that I showed him along the way. It’s such a strange feeling to know that we’ll likely be there at the same time, but not together. Instead, I’ll be avoiding everyone in a green jacket, wondering if it’s him every time I see one go by.

At least the PBR and pocket beef jerky will always be there for me.