Snowboarding is not my life

For some people, snowboarding is more than an enjoyable activity–it’s a way of life, a passion, or an addiction. So, for example, Midwesterners move from the flatlands to the Rockies. A friend of mine recently moved from Minnesota to Montana to pursue a long-time dream of living in the big mountains. Last I knew, he was living in a van and enjoying the life of a snowboard bum. On the other hand, my plans have never gotten beyond the “wouldn’t it be nice stage” and thinking, “I wish we had that kind of terrain around here.” Last time I mentioned that in an online forum, someone who lives in Colorado told me, “Hey, you can always move here.”

That’s true. I could move. But I haven’t. Why not? Because as much as I like snowboarding, I value other things more. Snowboarding, in short, is an important part of my life but it doesn’t define it.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy snowboarding in many different ways. There’s a quiet joy of cruising down an easy slope. The exhilaration of looking back up a difficult slope and saying, “I skied THAT! Woot!” The drop-my-jaw beauty of the mountains on a bluebird day. The God-it’s-so-good-to-be-alive feeling that comes when everything comes together on the slopes. From meditative contemplation to adrenaline rush to sense of accomplishment, I get it.

But I’m still in the flatlands.

There are some people who say, “My daddy lived and died here, his daddy lived and died here, I’m going to live and die here.” They have a strong anchor to a particular region that is part of the family heritage. I’m not like that. I’ve made three major moves in my life, and now I’m living in my fourth state, so I don’t have that degree of connection to where I am now. But while I don’t necessarily have deep roots, I do have things that keep me here, at least for the foreseeable future.

The first is family. My octogenarian in-laws moved here 7 years ago, largely to have two of their children near them should the need for help arise. (And they do receive such help from time to time.) My sister-in-law is here, too, and she has a boy who is in elementary school. Over time, I have helped her, and she has helped me. I’d like to see her boy graduate from high school. Getting even closer to home, my wife enjoys being around her parents and sister, and that’s no small consideration for me. Finally and most recently, I have a young child who enjoys seeing at least one set of grandparents on a regular basis, as well as an aunt and a cousin. All of these factors ground me here.

A second reason for not moving west in pursuit of snowy mountains is that it’s hard to move, period. It’s hard in many ways. There are emotional, financial, and physical costs, to say nothing of the question of “What are you going to do for a living?” The fact that it’s hard to move doesn’t mean I can’t. But it’s a factor.

A third reason is that snowboarding is an interest, but not a core part of who I am. Instead, my primary identity is in God. and what I have to do with him. Do I mean to say, “God told me not to move?” No, nothing like that. But snowboarding is far down the list of items that define me. The scriptures say “godliness with contentment is great gain” (1 Timothy 6:6). In other words, a relationship with God is the most important thing in life, and other things pale in comparison. This isn’t to say that I cannot meet God through snowboarding (I do), or that I can never strive to change anything about my life–get a new job, a new house, undertake a new challenge, or so forth. But I’m not as driven to move for the sake of snowboarding as I might otherwise be.

I don’t condemn anyone for moving to the mountains to spend more time snowboarding. We all have different situations and factors to consider. But for me, for now, my times in epic snow and terrain are limited to a few days a year rather than an entire season. I can live with that.