On the importance of snowboarding
Perhaps I've neglected this topic. I am getting quite old and with over 550 posts in the bag, I may have forgotten I've already written this. Pardon me. Nod and smile and pretend you're hearing it for the first time. That's me in the photo. I was still in high school, so 1996 or before is my only guess as to the date. I wore a hat emblazoned with South Dakota State University (where I later took online courses). I had that coat up until recently when I finally threw it out before moving back to Nebraska. (Almost eight months now since I moved back, whoa.) The board, covered in snow, was sold a long time ago. I figure this was taken in Colorado. I have no recollection where exactly. Still have the cheesy, crooked grin. Can't help it; that's what God gave me.
When I was in elementary school, on a school trip to Terry Peak in the Black Hills, I learned how to ski. I skied for many years. I became bored with the two-plank setup and decided to try one plank in high school. I got lessons and limped away that first day not sure I was going to make it. I may be a slow learner, but it was a rather "bumpy" process learning how to snowboard the first day. Luckily, after that day I became quite good, at least in my mind. My butt healed and the bruises faded. I was a snowboarder.
I was in a unique position at that point in history. Snowboarding was just becoming popular. It was still banned at certain resorts such as Vale. It had yet to achieve the zenith of its popularity. It was the 90s and the music of the decade echoed what snowboarding was going through. What was once alternative was suddenly popular. Kids like me were picking up boards and riding. It was fun. We were sort of like the skateboarders of the mountains. It was fun and reeked a little of danger.
Living on the plains of Nebraska made it a challenge go snowboarding. I supplemented my desire by subscribing to the main snowboarding rags of the age: Snowboarder and Transworld Snowboarding. They were thick, large-format magazines at the time, reflecting the amount of advertising dollars and interest in the burgeoning sport. Then a change happened. It must have been when I was 17, shortly after I had an accident and totaled my car and "broke up" with my "girlfriend" who lived in Colorado. I use quotation marks because all of it was in my head. She wasn't my girlfriend. And you can't break up with someone who isn't your girlfriend. This was probably my first clue I had a different reality than others and tend to live in a fantasy land of my own making.
Oh, but about that. Back up. I threw my mattress on the floor, apparently showing my disdain for the world. I was hurt. I slept on the floor and wrote letters to girls I met on IRC (even one from Sweden). IRC is internet relay chat, for those who missed out on that phenomenon. It was another big thing in the 90s before cell phones and social media supplanted it. But, during that time, I read an article in one of those snowboarding magazines that piqued my interest. It was about a music festival at one of the resorts in the mountains. One of the bands mentioned was Bad Religion. It was the first time I heard that name. The lyrics sounded pissed off and intelligent, which I later found to be true. I got on my dial-up modem and looked up the band. And it didn't stop there. There were other bands like The Offspring advertised in the magazine. Hadn't heard of them yet, either, but the whole world was about to. I ordered tapes from labels like Nitro Records and Fat Wreck Chords. I got the Vandals and AFI and whatever I could get my hands on. And drove to the Kearney mall to get Bad Religion tapes. I met the wrong girl when I was in college on undernet IRC (she was an efnet girl). I married her. Moved to Ohio. (Not in that order.) Basically, snowboarding was how I got off track. And just kept going off track. I got into drinking and other unhealthy behavior. But what happened in my soul was the most troubling. I was extremely depressed. I knew I had to do something to keep that depression to a minimum, but it kept growing. I made mistakes and kept making more. It took years for my life to turn around. I'm still turning it around. All because I got off track during a critical time in my high school years after a girl hurt my feelings. There's quite a lesson there. I take rejection quite hard, apparently.
The great lesson I've learned in all this is to not take my pain to things that are even more harmful. Give it to God. Let it go. Forgive if necessary. Forgive yourself, too. But I don't carry it with and use it to make even more disastrous mistakes. I can't afford to get off track anymore. What's important about my snowboarding years is it was a time of freedom and growth. I wore thrift store bajas and corduroys. Did as I pleased as often as I could. Then got into things that weren't good. I was in active rebellion against God. Loud, rebellious music. I made decisions I wish I could take back. Every. Single. Day.
As a sort of aside, when I was in college, I met a couple of girls on a Bad Religion channel on IRC who were visiting one of their moms in Denver. They were from Wyoming where they were going to school. I was planning a trip to a ski resort the next day and asked on a whim if they wanted to meet up. So we met at the primate exhibit at the zoo. That's probably symbolic of something. I don't think they were too impressed with me. It was weird because I pulled in right after them. That was one of the few times I met someone from IRC. They asked if I wanted to hang out with them while one of them got her tattoos touched up and I declined. I guess I wasn't too impressed with them either. And then I proceeded to get lost and ended up taking twice as long to get home. I blame the map, which cut off at a critical juncture. But I got a good story out of it. I guess.
One thing I liked about snowboarding was surfing the snow. Yes, snowboarding is like skateboarding and surfing and all the other one-plank sports. It makes sense that one could, essentially, surf snow. I wasn't too interested in the tricks like doing jibs off of trees. I wanted to surf the pow (short for powder). Even years later, when I needed to relax and de-stress for a moment (haha like when I couldn't pee at a urinal), I would imagine myself surfing pow. Instant relaxation. It was one of the most liberating things I've ever done. Another thing. To this day, I have the image of a girl I saw at a resort who was carrying her board in front of me. This is a hard thing to describe. She had the most relaxed, carefree walk I've ever seen. Nothing since then has ever matched it. Maybe it was seeing her with her board that made me want to snowboard. She looked like she didn't have a care in the world. Pure happiness. It's stuck with me nearly 30 years.
Recently, my parents visited on their way to Indiana for my niece's graduation party. They left a little box of horrors with me, along with a few other things. Didn't think anything about it. I was incredibly depressed and realized something in my apartment was making me feel that way. I rescued a hammer, a microwave, and two vacuum cleaners (one a Dyson) from the dumpster and cleaned them up. They all work fine. People throw away perfectly good items when it's time to move out and move back in with mom and dad or whomever. Anyway, there were other items that came into my apartment at the same time. I didn't know which was bothering me. So I prayed over everything. And then I looked down at the box, which I had been happily ignoring. It was like a time capsule from 1996 or so. It had a couple of college textbooks I must not have been able to sell back. It also contained all my report cards going back to kindergarten (which my mom likes to say I never attended because none of her children did, but I have the report card to prove it). Curiously, I didn't do very well in school (lots of Cs), in spite of being a really smart kid.
And then there were the things that made me cry. Like the letter it looks like I never answered from a girl I worked with at the newspaper in my hometown. Her name was Hannah White, and it was a sweet little letter she sent to me after I moved to Missouri. Her dad was Dave, who worked at the same place in the printing department, and married my mom's friend Phyllis after her husband, Ed, died a few years ago. Phyllis gave me graduation gifts when I graduated high school that I still have, like a set of JC Penny towels. Have you seen towels from 1996? They are quite colorful. I won't give them up. They were made well. Anyway. That wasn't the only letter that remained unanswered, unfortunately. (Would to God I could have the first one back.) I have no clue as to why this one still remains with me, though. Why didn't I just throw it away? Perhaps it was misplaced regret over the other letter. What shame and grief I buried for years. Concerning the original letter, I know that girl forgave me, but I've struggled to forgive myself. What I lost was immeasurable. What a precious soul exited my life at that moment. It was one of the most destructive and self-defeating decisions I've ever made. In case I cared to be reminded again. There it was right in front of me. I’ve said enough about that in the past, so let’s not wallow in self-pity again.
But that's not all that made me cry. Among the report cards (I was good at science but, illogically, not good at math) were things like drawings (I loved dinosaurs and still do). And a book about myself I made when I was in the 3rd grade. I wrote things like the following.
That last line really got me. And the drawing of my family (my dad working at a desk and the rest of us doing other things, my brothers playing basketball together). I cried over this box. It reminded me of all the mistakes I made. It was humiliating and painful. I was deeply humbled and broken. I gave all of my mistakes to God so at least something could come of them besides how I felt. Yes, I was deeply rejected by my family going back as far as I can recall. I am the black sheep. That is why I don't handle rejection very well. One memory that kept coming back to me a few years ago was when I was alone in the back of the station wagon/suburban/whatever we had at the time and wished with all my might to die because I hated my family and they hated me. By the way, who gives a child their childhood keepsakes and memories? Isn’t that for a parent to remember their kid when they were young? After they’ve left home? But, it's okay now. No, really.
Why, Joshua? Because I gave it all to God. It's gone now. I don't have ownership anymore. I don't have a right to it. Whenever I'm reminded of it, I can simply hand it over to God again. As many times as I need. It was something I had to do. I wasn't finished with my childhood stuff, apparently. What could have been a very dark time for me turned around quickly. I can't take credit for anything except that I take my pain to God instead of somewhere hurtful. Instead of burdening anyone with it, I take it to God. Not that I have anyone to burden. It was helpful to understand why I made the decisions I made. It was all in that effing box. Like I said, a little box of horrors. But I gave everything in that box to God. I prayed over it. I'll probably keep the report cards. Not sure what else.
What's funny is I could feel there was hurt in that box. It was sitting right next to me as I watched a movie and I could feel it. Something was dreadfully wrong. I don't get these feelings for no reason. Once I prayed and went for a walk, I came back and the feeling was different. Everything was okay. God brought it to my attention for a reason, and I did the thing I was supposed to do. See, I have learned something since I was a dumb kid in high school. Rejection – real or imagined – doesn’t rule me. Rebellion doesn’t either. Shame is silenced under a blanket of forgiveness. God guides my life, and through both good and bad. What else have I learned? We can't escape what God is trying to show us. We can't skip lessons. Eventually, we'll have to go through it. Denying ourselves that pain (it's temporary, you'll be fine) is only denying ourselves growth. Keeping the pain is the worst thing, as it denies God the ability to use it. When we see someone going through something hard, we tend to want to rescue them by offering advice or whatnot. But what we should do is keep our hands off and pray hard for them, asking God to use it for His purposes in their lives. Don't deny them the pain. Because you'll also deny them the growth they need. Just ask that God use it to turn them to Him. Make it useful. Hurts will always come. Learning how to deal with them (asking God for help) is what's necessary and helpful. Struggle is good if it's done in the right spirit. I'm glad I learned that since I first fancied a snowboard and all the folly that ensued. When you end up thanking God for even the bad things that happen, you know you've come a long way.
***
This song spoke to me recently. It’s not just the simple way in which it is performed. I actually feel this sentiment in my soul. For the first time in a long time I feel at peace in my soul, for which I can only thank God.
This was an unplanned post, but I'm glad I wrote it. My next post will be a little more upbeat. If not, you can shake your fist at me or something.
Thank you for reading. And God bless.
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