Hit it!

There are certain times where I am reminded of my former self, the 328lbs version of myself, who never met a late night peanut butter sandwich he didn’t like and had to stop halfway up flights of stairs for a wee breather.

Sports was also a benchmark of my excessive weight, basketball pick up games became a chore not a calendar event worth anticipating and my coaching of soccer when I looked more like the ball than a player was not really that inspiring to my players, one of which happened to be my son.

Growing up with an opportunity to regularly attend cottages also allowed me to participate in water sports. While never an avid water skier, I always liked the thrill of screaming “Hit it!” and getting the skis to the plane position, shaking my long mane of hair (wait, what?) and escaping the docile confines of behind the boat to outside the wake, where bumps and wipe outs lay waiting to happen.

Then that all stopped because, without twin Mercury 500 horsepower motors, the boats we had over the years were not powerful enough to hoist me out of the water. In fact, it felt like I was the one pulling the boat as blisters formed on my palms as I desperately tried to hold on to return the joyous place of skimming across the top of the water and waving to the crowd on the dock. The fact became that I was too fat to water ski.

Well that all changed after taking the kids for tube and my niece Emma fleetingly asking me if I wanted to try to get up again. Through a hangover haze, I agreed and my brother in law high fived me and I started to slip into the skis.

I was so ready for failure, for the growl of the boat to amplify to no freaking way chubber.

And low and behold, with my wife and youngest son in the bow, I yelled “Hit it!!” and on my first try was yanked out of the water and into the familiar position of water skiing once again.

Note my wife’s V for victory sign!

Everyone (including my impressionable and proud sons) erupted as I shook the water from my ringlets (huh what?) and carved back and forth behind my dad’s boat for a solid 10 minute ride.

What a feeling.  100lbs less of me. 100 times more joy than I could ever remember.