A slippery slope.

It started off well. She slowly glided her way down a mountain top , through virgin snow and basked in the warmth of the glistening sun, enjoying the startling vista of white-covered peaks and clear blue skies.

But gravity soon took over, and pulled her down an unfamiliar and steeper route. As her speed increased and poles suddenly appeared from nowhere, she could feel herself starting to lose control.

She tried what she had been taught, her instructor’s monotone voice reverberating in her mind :

“To turn more sharply and on steeper slopes you need to move your weight from foot to foot as well as turning them.”

As she slalomed her way down the slope , the momentum building faster and faster, she had a profound thought of how it mirrored her life : A constant downhill struggle of slaloming her way through crap!

No time to think, as one obstacle after another emerged from nowhere, testing her control and threatening to take her down.

Mounting bills, lean left.

Finding work, lean right.

Parents’ divorce, lean left again.

Her frightening and controlling ex-boyfriend Jack, well she went smack bang into that one!

She lay as a thermal-clothing heap on the cold snow, legs sore and googles askew , and pondered “Is this how it will all end with Jack ? ”

She picked herself up and dusted herself off as her instructor came skiing up beside her.

“I was going too fast and I couldn’t avoid Jack... I mean the post.”

″ Simple solution to that, ” The instructor replied in a robotic voice, devoid of sympathy “Slow down and balance yourself. Or if you need to, just stop.”