Back from the snow! I went skiing with a bunch of friends for 4 nights down in Jindabyne which was lots of fun. Skiing isn't my favourite thing, because it's scary and painful but it's also fun (mostly) and I love being with friends and doing something active, as well as being on holidays and creating new bonds between myself and people I'm not particularly close to.
I travelled the 5 and a half hour trip there and back with my friend, a boyfriend of one of my best friends. The other four all travelled together without us, so we were by ourselves and it was a really good time. I had wondered what we would talk about to pass the time, but I figured out that it's pretty easy to keep a comfortable conversation going, just about things happening at the time.
Since we were comfortable whenever we lapsed into silence, it was very easy just to talk about the music we were listening to (his first, then mine), driving instructions, plans for the trip ahead, and of course, his girlfriend and my best friend (as they are the same person). It was nice to just chill out, sing along to music (it is so fucking endearing when some boys sing along quietly to the music they like), and joke around with this person who is not a regular conversationalist of mine, though we've known each other since Year 7.
The trip back though, that was where our conversations actually got really deep and intense, which was great. Unexpected but I am up for a DnM, any time, especially with someone of the opposite sex who I don't think I know the inner workings of very well. He is much better at reading me than I am at deciphering him, though I like the think I gave it a good go, made easier by him being amused and open to my probing. He's very different to most people I know, and I don't think I fully appreciated it before? I got beyond the surface and I think I appreciate his personality a lot more because I understand much more of his inner workings. I also think that this weekend was him kind of showing his best side. I am not saying I think it was intentional or because of me, but the situation of the trip was a good environment for him and I was in a state that let him show it off.
I suppose I should talk about the actual trip now, as opposed to just my best friends boyfriend haha. But like, really, skiing is skiing, mates are mates, but real friends, that's the important stuff.
Basically the highlights (or lowlights I suppose) is that I kind of had a panic attack on the slopes? I mean, I just got a D in Abnormal Psychology and I could list a bunch of DSM IV criteria for a panic attack, though I don't remember how many are needed for a diagnosis. But I was stressed to the max, I stacked hard, face first into a tree in a ditch, and I just lay there stunned for a moment, then started to sob and hyperventilate.
The same kind of thing has happened before, when I've had a sudden pain/shock from an unexpected fall. Once when I was running, I was waiting for a light to change, jogging on the spot when I fell and sprained my ankle, and I just lost it. Not so much the hyperventilation but the very raw crying, just in this crazy mood when nothing is comforting, it's just sob and sob and it just runs amok. I remember limping home crying, then leaning my forehead against the inside of the front door and just falling apart.
That is basically what happened. I lay there not responding as a friend asked if I was alright, only moving when two guys I didn't know came over to pull me up and out of the ditch. Minutes later we finally reached the chairlift, it was a double and we were three people so I was by myself, so I basically just continued to cry and barely be able to catch my breath. I just wanted to find the others, to make it back, and after the chairlift, I got my skis off, spotted the boys, eventually caught up to them, and when my friend saw me, he basically was just like 'are you alright?' and I was like 'yeah...no.... I don't... yeah.' And I'm still crying like mad so when he asked how the run was, I was just like gasping 'bad'. So he hugged me and did the 'rub thumb comfortingly on shoulder' which I have always appreciated, not so much because it does anything for me, but I enjoy the intent behind it.
I'm just highlighting here, this guy is just a good friend, I'm dedicating this entry to him as a friend, 100% that is all, he has always been my proof that I can have guy friends with no romantic and/or sexual undertones what so ever. Appreciating physical contact like hugs, isn't about attraction, not at all, it's the fact that he doesn't do it often and it isn't something he engages in lightly so it meant a lot for him to do so. And honestly, I automatically drift towards people I see as towers of strength and he was that for me a lot of the trip, as my closest friend there and the most skilled and knowledgable about the snow and skiing, so it was natural for me to head for him when I was upset. He picked up that role pretty well, I think it is his nature to be protective, which I didn't really see before, but I'm not usually so out of my element as when skiing so I suppose that's why I noticed it more when I was playing damsel in distress, what with the worrying and terror that skiing causes me.
Other than that though, the trip was a great success, next year hopefully we'll end up in New Zealand, as it isn't really much more money, since lift tickets in Australia are incredibly expensive. Skiing is a good life skill to know, it's a great way to be social with a group that I'm social with but not overly close to, and it is fun. Just want to sleep now though, so buggered from the whole thing. Late nights, early starts and hardcore exercise for 4 days straight is not for the faint of heart (though apparently it is when said individual has work the following 3 days, basketball on two, and then 2 days of straight netball before uni starts back).
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