Learning From the Mistakes We've Made

This week’s big task is packing for a ski trip to Telluride, Colorado, that Mark and I are leaving for on Saturday.  By “ski trip” I mean that he will be skiing, but I’m opting out this time, and will instead spend my days curled up in front of the fireplace reading and writing.

The truth is, most of our rockiest marital moments have happened on the ski slopes.

Usually the day starts out fine enough.  We have a Bloody Mary to get our nourishment, and we're still all smiles as we plop down into the lift chair for the first ski of the day, which is usually on the bunny slopes, to help us get our sea legs.

By midday, we've moved on to the harder greens, and maybe even a few blue runs.  We're starting to get tired by now, and if the snow isn't just the perfect consistency of powder, then my legs - feeling like jello after only a few hours of skiing - inevitably fail me, and it becomes much easier for me to fall down, and much harder for me to get myself up.

By the middle of the afternoon, it's almost impossible for my upper body to have the strength needed to hoist my ample bottom half back up.  Mark tries to help me, but this is always a mistake.  

A mistake he never learns from.

He never fails to position himself at the exact worst possible angle, leaving me no leverage to push myself up.  I admit that my tone is a bit... abrupt when I tell him that he needs to move slightly to the left or the right.  

He says to me, "Hey, don't get mad at me, I'm trying to help you."

I look up at him through my googles, my body decked out in a not-flattering-in-the-least puffy ski jacket and pants, one ski on and one ski off,  my ski poles still attached at each wrist.  

I tell him I don't want his help.

He tells me I need his help.

I scream vile things at him, the poof on top of my super-cute toboggan bouncing around as I hit at him with puffy-gloved hands, telling him, “just get away from me!  Just go!” while he calmly - but with gritted teeth - tells me he’s not leaving me because he’s afraid I’ll never be able to get up and I’ll just end up dying up there, and that's the last thing he needs to deal with on a work trip, so I need to just give him my f*cking hand and let him help me get up."

I’m just not sure our marriage is strong enough to withstand that kind of test right now.  

Things have been dicey ever since he spoke to me using a critical tone regarding my chocolate chip cookie consumption.  Here’s how that went down:

Me:  **On my bed, bent over, painting my toenails.**

Him:  Hey, where are those cookies?

Me:  What cookies?  **Disclosure: I knew what cookies he was talking about.**  

Him:  The ones you just made yesterday.

Me:  Oh.  They’re gone.

Him:  What?!

Me:  **Looking at him, now, because - did he just take that tone?**  I said, they’re gone.

Him:  What do you mean, they’re gone?  Where did they go?

Me:  I ate them.

Him:  All of them?  

Me:  Um yes… all of them.  It only made like two dozen.

He stood there staring at me for a moment, and I could tell he was calculating what he should say.  

Him:  **Shaking his head and walking out of the room.**  Jesus, woman, have some control!

Things haven’t been the same since.  

That was in 1995, when we were still newlyweds, and I’m still trying to heal.

All that aside, I’m just not feeling it.  I love skiing, and Mark and I used to go every year, despite the strain it had on our relationship.  We’ve skied at some amazing resorts: Taos, NM and Deer Valley in Utah are two of our favorites.  

I would love to add Telluride to my list, and I am afraid I’ll regret not bringing all my gear once we get up there.  

But the thought of having three or four days of solitude where I can focus on my writing - and not having to deal with being asked to "watch this video" of a guy flipping a bottle of water, or of letting dogs in and out all day long- sounds pretty amazing.  

I’m planning to work on a few blog posts and my bullet journal, which I just started doing for 2017, because that's what I do when I feel like I have a lot on my plate:  I add in more things, but only if they're tedious, time-consuming things like hand-lettering chalkboard signs throughout my house, or, of course, my new bullet journal.

I will fit in time to check out the adorable village of Telluride, which I’ll share with you so you won’t be all, “Ugh, she went to Telluride and was all braggy about the stuff she got to do, but she didn’t even share any of that with me, that self-centered cumquat.”

With tingling adulation,

Ever been to Telluride?  Any must-see’s for me?  Tell me in the comments below!

Did you like that judgy conversation Mark and I had about my cookie eating?  There’s a lot more of that kind of dirty laundry in my book, You Should Write a Book: True Tales of An Unstable Life.  You can buy it online at all major bookstores or get a signed copy here.