When I was your age, my brother wore yellow pants. Well, they were actually red pants, but he wore them inside out...

I used to be a huge fan of Burton. Back in 1996, I painted houses for an entire summer just to be able to afford a last-year's-model Shannon Dunn 144 snowboard. Even though I was a tomboy at the time, adamantly so, somehow, my snowboard ended up pink, with dragonflies and lily pads on it. Obviously, dragonflies are tomboyish, but the pink?

(And now my wedding dress is pink- go figure.)

I remember my first day on that board. I'd ridden so many Burton boards as back in the day when I was learning, the end of the 1994/95 winter season and the 1995/96 season, Jay Peak somehow had brand new Burton boards for rent. I usually rode the Air 155, mainly because it was the first one that was available and somehow, when you're a snowboarding virgin, you ride what you know, not what is right.

My stance was huge. Way, way too wide for my body height. And honestly, it's not much different to this day. I like my stance wide.

So there I was, riding in a small bit of powder, my board rolling over the bumps far more flexibly than I was used to on account of the size difference and I remember thinking, "Please let me love this board," as I couldn't afford another one.

In the end, that Burton board and I bonded to the point where it felt like my feet. I strap that board on and I feel like I'm home. Now, the white parts are yellow and there are cracks in the paint, but still, this board is my board more than ever.

It doesn't matter that I have a red jacket and brown corduroy snowpants and burgundy and red snowboard boots. It doesn't matter that my new helmet is black either. What matters is the feeling of the snow passing under my feet- my feet being my freshly waxed board and me.

My bindings are so tight that my pinky toe and the nameless one next to it lose feeling every so often, but I need them tight so that the board moves when I move without any leeway in between.

We're one. And I'm home.

I remember the Matt I dated a pajillion years ago used to say, "It's for the cause," when one of us would spend more money than we had on snowboarding.

I remember buying my first helmet after bashing my head in on my first day riding the halfpipe when I was around sixteen.

I remember the magic.

And though snowboarding and I have had a tumultuous relationship since that fateful day in April 2001 when I fell my hardest fall and ruined my eyesight, it still is home to me. My heart aches at the shattered dreams, but it is calmed when I'm actually riding. I miss it every day I am not on the hill.

There are other causes now- dogs, a mortgage, debts to pay off, but I can't help but feel that one day, I'll get back out there. One day, I'll ride more and more instead of less and less. One day.

Today, watching youtube videos of a particularly prominent female snowboarder, she broke my heart. First of all, when you google her, you get more pictures and videos of her in a swimsuit than on a board, and that's just fricken sad. But watching an interview with her where she said her most favorite thing to do is to get away and lie on a beach? That's what snowboarding has come to? The people who have made it, the ones who the younger people aspire to become, want to get away from it? And the way they talk about it? They train and they win golds and they achieve and they profit. It's fucking horrible. It's not horrible if that's what they want, but man, it's horrible for me. It's horrible to watch this sport that is so magical and that is my home be somebody else's tedium.

Add to that that back in the day, snowboarding was about pushing each other and encouraging each other and today, Burton posted a picture of some dude who won the x-games and blurred out the other two riders. That's just... not what it used to be about.

My brother was my inspiration, I think. He pushed me to be more fearless, made it ok for me to be weird and never cared what other people thought of him. He got these Ocean Pacific snowpants that were red and grey and patchy and when those went out of style, he flipped them inside out and wore them like that, the lining being a bright golden yellow. He didn't care.

And I wore my ten pound Airwalk jacket that was about seventeen sizes too big for me but was so, so waterproof and windproof and my black snowpants and my white boots with my white and pink board and my burgundy helmet (that I would eventually ruin by slamming my head into it) and it never even occurred to me when the time came to replace my coat or my pants or my boots to get matching shit. Never. I bought whatever was the best fit technically, financially and for comfort for me at the time.

And to this day, when I go out on the hill, especially since I got my brown corduroy snowpants (I mean, come on, corduroy snowpants? Seriously. What is more me than corduroy snowpants?), I can't help but feel like even if I'm the worst dressed mofo on the hill on any given day, I was there when it started. You know? I was there when I was the only snowboarding girl on the hill, wherever I went. I was there when snowboarding was banned still at the majority of hills and frowned upon where it wasn't. I was there when the retro board we envied was the Jeff Brushie 1994 board and there was still a chance of buying it somewhere as a last year's model. I was there before snowboarders were famous- unless you read the magazines or bought the videos. And I was (and always am) warm and cozy too.

I fucking miss it, you know? I wish the next generations of snowboarders could know what it's like to really surf the snow. To feel it under their feet and be at peace. God knows they'll never feel like they're doing something outside the mainstream when they do it.

Man, I feel old right now. :D

I started snowboarding seventeen years ago after putting my skis in the car (I started skiing at four) and using my lunch money to rent a snowboard for an afternoon. I never ever looked back. I never skied again and I didn't miss it. Snowboarding was just my thing.

I miss it.

And it's funny because after my concussion, it was so hard to go back to the hill because I felt like I wanted the hill to remember me as I was- the fearless, crazy big air girl who spent all day in the halfpipe or in the terrain park- and now, it's like the whole sport is something completely different anyway. Maybe snowboarding would rather I remember it the way it was too. And every now and then, we can be like old friends, bonding again over how ridiculous kids are these days.

Maybe.

Either way, we're fucking magical together.