Finding My Purpose Anonymous

As I walked through the door there she stood, staring into oblivion with a dazed look on her face. Alice was my first Adaptive student, and the only discernible sound that she emitted was "ribbit." I was intrigued, but not surprised, because the training I had received beforehand had led me to consider the "abnormal" normal. I reviewed her file, but it told me nothing, because it was filled with misinformation (like claiming that this five foot tall woman wore a men's size eleven snowboard boot). I fit the rest of her gear based on my discretion, and since I had been snowboarding for over thirteen years at that point, I was confident in my decisions.

Then, it was finally time to hit the slopes.

Once we walked out the door, Alice started to tremble while ribbiting in horror, as if the snow was a monster hiding in her closet. Calming her nerves with words was pointless, so I resorted to penguin sliding and playing with the fluffy stuff to prove that the trail meant no harm. Suddenly her eyes widened and a smirk caught her face, at which point I figured that it was now or never. I told her to "feed the alligator to the snake," which is an expression Adaptive instructors use to describe strapping on a pair of snowboard bindings....