Early in my life I knew I was different. At the playground, I only wanted to jump off the top of the slide instead of sliding down it like everyone else, or attempt twirling jumps off the porch stairs while mom and dad held their breaths. I would walk down the block with friends in my knee-socks-and-mini-skirt high school uniform and invite challenges: “hey girls, check this out, think I can jump over that bench?!” I don’t know where it came from, but I clearly had some thrill-seeking bug.

As I officially announce my retirement today, I think back to my last year of high school, at a local rail jam, I clicked into the first pair of skis in more than a decade and fell in love instantly. I experienced an inexplicable sense of belonging, as if the calling had been there all along. Everything was suddenly urging me to step off the beaten path, move to the west of Canada and pursue a sport I’d tried only… twice?