2005 Reasons: A Count Down to Happiness

This is the first year in many that I can report money, sophisticated electronics, and a chip (previously removed from my shoulder) in my pocket. We are well into 2005 and things appear to be going well, I will not tempt fate by describing just how well. By this time in 2004 I had already lost two cell phones, suffered a crushing blow to my bank account through identity thievery and had a number of people not speaking to me. As I mentioned, things appear to going well, or at least better.

I’ve just returned from the Fallon Family Annual Ski Trip to Okemo Mountain, this being year 18. We travel every year on Martin Luther King’s Birthday with the same relative-type-close family friends and stay at the same house. Very few traditions remain, it’s nice to still have this one to look forward to…I will try to hold on to it with all I’ve got. We catch up each year like it’s been twenty, and make false promises to get together more often than once a year. The trip used to include the adults and the kids separated by one solid wall. Beyond that wall grew debauchery as the older kids stole alcohol for the younger…giving them lessons and music to take with them into their future. The younger then became the older until they were the eldest. This year, my brother and I were the only “kids” present and we stayed in “the big house”. Our presence was cherished and reward by mother and father type pampering throughout the weekend.

Every year “the adults” get a big kick about how well I can ride that board, (a snowboard, and I’ve been riding since I was 12,) and how I play music in a Rock N’ Roll band. They inquire about our jobs, our lives, paying close attention to the more responsible, grow-up aspects of our accounts searching for hints of marriage, children, promotions with lots-o-money. Even if there is no glimmer, they place one within the context of your uneasy rambling. My Brother and I (who were apart of the “older kids”, my brother being first generation and I the second) are the only ones who have not married or had children. “The adults” try to push children from us with the weights of their stares. Since, no children or spouses are present…we remain “the kids.”

The snow boarding was spectacular…not to say that the conditions were good, or that it wasn’t 10 below on the mountain. It was spectacular because I rarely get to do it anymore and I love it tremendously (the closest thing to flying.) When I was 18 and in college I afforded to go to the mountain 3-5 times a week, and if it weren’t for a devastating fall I might have chosen a snowboard oriented career of sorts. For now, I comfortably slip in to the pale corners of dark bars, avoiding fresh air and the sun. This is why the snowboarding this weekend was spectacular.