Switzerland, Bucket Lists, Injuries and Colors

There are very few things that I would say have ever been on my bucket list.  One of the few things that may have gotten on there is skiing in the Swiss Alps.

Why the Swiss Alps?  Because those are the Alps that everyone seemed to talk about when I was in young and in the United States.

Are the Swiss Alps better than the Rockies or the French Alps?  I don't think so.  The Rockies are great... maybe even flipping [2] great.  I love skiing in Utah, personally.  The skiing is steeper and more extreme than Colorado, it gets more snow than Montana, the snow is lighter and more consistent than California, and I had really shitty snow (aka ice) in Alaska when I went there.  Utah is the best in the continental U.S., in my opinion.  So there you have it.

I've also spent some significant time skiing in the French Alps.  Last year I skied Chamonix with my cousin.  I just got done spending 3 months in the French Alps.  I kicked off the experience skiing in Les 3 Vallées with some German friends and had a blast.  Then I went to Les 2 Alpes and hung out there for about two and a half months.  The whole experience was great.  I managed to go the full time in France without any major injuries.  Sure I hurt my wrist at the beginning and had to ski with one ski pole for about 2 weeks.  And toward the end, I hurt my shoulder whilst trying to do a hand plant on a quarter pipe (it was a miserable attempt and I won't be trying it again). But no major injuries.  Success!! That's including doing flips, backcountry, and some intense couloirs.

Then on the way back to Germany a couple friends and I were road-tripping through Switzerland and I wanted to check something off my bucket list.  My very short bucket list.

I don't keep a bucket list.  I, generally, don't believe in them.  I think that if you want to do something then do it.  How are you going to know what you want to do later on in life?  Figure out what you want to do now and make it happen.

But that being said I had to admit to myself that I did always have a dream of skiing in Switzerland.  Not because the Swiss Alps are so awesome.  Simply because when people think of skiing in Europe they think of skiing in Switzerland in the same way that people think about skiing in Colorado in the Rockies when Utah is right next door and generally has better skiing.  And just like in Colorado, Switzerland is the most expensive place to ski in the Alps.

So I wasn't going to buy a pass.  I just wanted to hike up one time and ski down.  It was a beautiful day to hike up at the Jungfrau resort area, but the snow was absolute sh*t.  I didn't like the conditions so I was going to ski down and try and take it easy.  I had built some little jumps so that I could have a little bit of fun on the way down.

Unfortunately, on the way down I managed to find some ice underneath the snow which took my ski off and I plummetted head first into another piece of ice.

I know that skiing is a dangerous sport.  I try and be careful... and to a large extent, I've managed to go most of my life without too many major injuries from skiing.  I've had a couple of concussions, lost a tooth and chipped others, broken my nose, split my lip open, had 19 stitches on my chin, and maybe a couple other minor injuries [3].

Those injuries were on flips, though.  Which is why every single year I tell my cousin, Andrew, who is often times skiing with me.  "No more flips this year."

Sometimes I dream that I'm skiing.  And sometimes I'm even able to stop myself from doing flips in my dreams.  Even my subconscious is learning!

That being said... I did quite a few flips this year.  No front flips, though!  #babysteps

So needless to say I was a little bit frustrated when I plummetted my collarbone (or Schlüsselbein as the Germans would say) directly into a chunk of ice.  What was that ice even doing there?  I don't know.  But it was there.  And apparently my collar bone wasn't strong enough to take a chunk out of the ice and instead the ice broke my collarbone into three pieces.

I knew it was broken right away.  I heard it break.  The sound of your own bones breaking isn't the most pleasant sound in the world.  I felt it just to make sure I wasn't wrong, and as I expected I wasn't wrong.  I could feel a part of the bone sticking up.

I'm no stranger to injuries.  I wish I was.  It took me a long time to realize that your body is a vehicle for you to get through this life.  Except unlike a vehicle, you can't just buy a new one if this one is kaputt.  Someone probably told me that at some point, but hey... I'm a slow learner!

At this point in my life, I've had a knee surgery, hip surgeries on each hip, wrist surgery, septoplasty (which I like to call a nose job), tonsillectomy, wisdom teeth removed, a tooth implant, ruptured my spleen, and some scars.

I think that's about it for surgeries and injuries.  It's actually quite a lot when you list it out like that, isn't it? It's actually embarrassing to tell the doctors when they ask if I've had surgery before.

So... I'm not a stranger to injuries.  When I get injured I don't cry and panic.  I think, "Goddammit!  Not again!"  And that's exactly what I thought when I broke my collarbone.  I'd like to say that it shouldn't have happened and that I would never have thought that it would happen, but at this point in my life can I really say that?  No one ever expects to get injured... it just happens.   And for some reason, it seems to happen to some more than others.  I'm not even surprised when it happens anymore.  Just disappointed.

I look at my situation a little differently than I used to and I'd like to share that view now.  I think some people think that life is filled with good things and bad things.  Black and white.  Sometimes people talk about a middle area that's called "gray."  And the gray area is used to explain to people that the world is not "just black and white."

Here's my question:  Why are we only using two colors?  Even if you insert gray you are still using just a lighter form of black.  There's a whole array of colors available for everyone to use and we're just using the two most opposite available?

And on top of that, one of the colors is considered evil or bad.  Would you watch a black and white TV with the brightness turned all the way up so that everything is white?  The white isn't any better than the black... you need them both and all shades of gray in between.

But color TV is even better.  Every color filled moment is beautiful.

If I hadn't broke my collar bone I wouldn't have skied down and had a nice conversation with an older Asian lady about why I was holding my arm.  She gave me some delicious cheese.

And then I drove down to a restaurant and met a family from Munich and they were nice enough to drive my car down for me and help me into the hospital.  Somehow I managed to have a conversation about politics (#feeltheburn) in German even though I hadn't spoken German for a couple months.  I was proud of myself.

And then I checked into the hospital and the nice people working there took care of me.  The look on the nurse when she saw my collarbone was classic.  She was like, "Just... don't move."  She was quite good looking too.

My friends were there to help me through the whole ordeal.  They said when I got out of the surgery I was speaking in "slurred German" and making the nurses laugh.  I don't remember it, but I'm glad I can keep a good attitude and good humor post surgery.   Look how happy I am:

Now... does it suck having a broken collarbone?  Yes, it does.  I can't play tennis for 3-4 months.  I have to take a week off of working on my master's thesis.  It hurts to walk around and sleep.  It's my dominant hand which means I have to do everything left handed.  Just try brushing your teeth or wiping your ass with your non-dominant hand next time.  I find it awkward myself.

This isn't the first time that I've been with only my non-dominant hand.  I had wrist surgery about 3 years ago and that left me even less capable than I am today.  I was working at the time and it had started to snow that day.  I wasn't looking forward to clearing off my car.  When I went out to my car I saw this:

"Life sux with 1 arm."  Yes... yes it most certainly does.  To this day, this is an awesome moment for me to recall.  The simple fact that someone else out there was willing to do this small thing for me was uplifting.  To this day, I don't know who it was.  And it doesn't really matter either, does it?  The fact is that most people would do something this small for someone else.  And who knows how it will be received.

The gentleman who drove me to the hospital doesn't know how much I appreciate it.  My friends don't understand how much I appreciate them being there for me.

Life sux with one arm... but it's still as beautiful as ever.  This is just a bit of dark color in the painting, but those bright colors wouldn't be so bright without the dark colors, would they?

Plus now I can check "ski in the Swiss Alps" off of my bucket list.  3 hours of hiking and a solid 2 minutes or so of skiing, and at least 1 minute of that was skiing with a broken collarbone.  #worthit

Side Stories that may or may not be relevant to anything:

1. Inserting pictures into this blog is a pain in the ass. Maybe even more of a pain in the ass than brushing my teeth with my left hand. 
2. Feel free to replace "flipping" with any other word that starts with "F" and ends with "ing"  
3. Before you say that skiing is too dangerous, I'd like to mention that I've been injured more times in basketball.  Just to keep it in perspective and defend my favorite sport for a moment.