Slapshot to the Heart

For fourteen years I had been a figure skater. I had been a competitive figure skater. I had been a champion figure skater. I looked down at others who took the ice before and after me. The other people at the rink would call me the ‘Ice Princess’ not as a cute nickname but as an insult. They thought I was a stuck up bitch. When it was time for me to practice and the hockey team on the ice went into overtime during a game I would flip. Once I was so made after double overtime I opened the door and just got on the ice. I thought I owned that ice.

In a way I did though. My father owned that rink and as his daughter I believed I had special rights. I came from a wealthy family and did I let it show. I would wear all the newest styles and have the brand named clothes. Never would I be caught wearing a pair of jeans that came off the shelves at a Wal-Mart or a Target, or carrying a purse from a discount store. I simply would never be caught dead doing these things. I was stuck up I guess.

If right now as you read this you think I was a dumb blonde you have it all wrong. I was the total opposite. I was the smart brunette with the green eyes. I always kept a book in my designer bag. I wore contacts, but the few times you caught me wearing glasses they were not the colored wired frames found at your eye doctors but Coach glasses specially ordered, not that I ever wore them.

You may also think I grew up in a city by my description. Rich girl with designer clothes and purses, but I grew up in a small town in Minnesota. I was far from living in the big city. The closest city was a couple hour drive that I would take on occasion. Most of my clothing and accessories were ordered over the web. The sporting events in my town were big. The football games in the fall, the hockey in the winter, and the baseball in the spring. Everyone followed the high school boy sports. Girls soccer, hockey, and softball were followed but not too closely. Cross country and track was not a major highlight in the town’s athletics.

Figure skating was not something this town was a fan of really. Guys in school thought I was a stuck up snob because of it but had they ever talked to some of the cheerleaders they drooled over? I never let what they would say stop me and continued to follow my dreams in skating. I always thought skating would be what would one day get me out of this town. I figured I would get out before I went to college unlike everyone else but I never did. I let the town, even the state a lot but always came back. I went to multiple competitions and came back highly ranked, many competed at multiple regional competitions and always came back at least top five – even returning with gold some years – I went to nationals five times, coming back with top tens, top fives, the silver twice and gold twice. I always thought these achievements would be recognized; I would get a sponsor get out of this town and do endorsements, live on my own for a while but no. I got offers but my parents would never let me accept and being under eighteen I needed their signature.
At seventeen I suffered a fall that put the end to my skating career. It was in the beginning of my senior year and while trying a new jump I fell and broke my leg in three places. I had to have surgery to have two metal plates and six screws put in my leg. After all the therapy I was scared to throw more than a double and nervous to even do that. Never mind get on the ice. My first time back out on the ice I got to the center and begin to hyperventilate and cry. I gave up a few weeks later. I was retired at age seventeen.

After I hung up my skates I began to get lazy. Not in the way that I didn’t run every morning but with my appearance. Skating had drilled into me that I had to always look my best. I wore the best clothes, had the best hair, and did the best makeup. I started to go to school in only jeans and a sweatshirt, they were still my favorite brands but there were not of my cute sweaters and dresses and skirts, just jeans and sweatshirt and sometimes a t-shirt. I gave up on my hair most mornings never straightening it leaving my curly hair natural or putting it up in a simple ponytail. My make up was low key, just my foundation and mascara and then eyeliner on occasion.

I had been accepted into many colleges with my grades and ended up going to the University of New Hampshire. UNH was just what I wanted in a college. It was basically far from home. By going away for college I figured I would be able to reinvent myself. I wouldn’t be the Ice Princess, the figure skater, the stuck up snob, the rich kid, the spoiled brat, or the ones I hated most… the failure, the quitter, the loser. They all though I quite, I gave up, was scared but I didn’t and wasn’t. Really going back out on that ice hurt me in another way and I gave up because of something else they had no idea about.