The white snow completely covered the parking lot and surrounded each individual car parked. I had been sitting in a black leather seat in the lobby of my church waiting to see what my family and I would do afterward. As usual, my father and mother wanted to talk to their friends after the service just as always and I thought I would just wait till we would go home. Then I get a text from someone, who will remain anonymous, about what they were going to do that day. They told me that they were going to sled down the hill in their neighborhood. They then asked me if I usually go sledding in the winter, and I told them I don’t. I told them I didn’t have a hill where I lived and they suggested I should still go sledding. Low and behold, the other kids from my church were going to go sledding across the street from the church. So I told my friend that I was going to go, and I walked with them out the door and into the street.

When we got outside and entered the school’s parking lot I felt the soft, pillowy texture underneath my feet. I could feel the cold wind blow against my face. When we came to the end of the parking lot, a large descending hill lay in front of us. At first I was scared because I thought of all the different possibilities of how. Then I did it. I slid down the huge hill and it was exhilarating. I could feel the wind on my face. I could feel the air blasting small pieces of snow onto my face as I slid down the large hill. When I finally reached the bottom I couldn’t wait to go again. I sprinted back up the slippery hill feeling the snow being compacted underneath my feet. When I got to the top for the second time I wasn’t scared. Immediately I threw down my sled and flew down the hill without hesitation. Afterward, I was so excited for the rest of the hills. I couldn’t wait.

We continued sledding on different hills that surrounded the school. There were lots of kids and parents sledding there also. They were all doing the same thing, climbing up the hill and sledding back down. Climbing up the hill was a struggle. Slippery snow combined with steep hills and the shoes I were wearing that were definitely not made snow did not make it very easy. At one point I resorted to climbing up on my knees. But when I finally got to the top it was all worth it. The feeling was exactly like the second time I went down the first hill. I just flew down the hill. The sled beneath me was shaking and bumping up and down from the small piles of snow underneath. I slowly came to a halt right in front of the brick building that presented itself a couple yards in front of me. Another few yards away another kid came sliding down the hill and ran straight into a huge puddle of water. As we continued sledding, we stayed on the same hill for a while. Although, I noticed the group was slowly drifting to the right. Just like when the current in the ocean drifts you towards a certain direction without you even trying. That’s when we came across a ramp some other kids had made, sledded down, and left behind.

The ramp we saw was about two tall and had the length of about 4 feet. It does not sound very scary, but to me it was. So there I decided for myself, “I’m just gonna keep sledding on the normal hill and not sled on the ramp.” Then everyone else started sledding down it. One after another they just went without hesitation. They kept suggesting to me that I should just do it. I really didn’t want to. But when I got to the top of the hill I looked down from the top and looked down at the ramp. I thought to myself, “If everyone else is doing it, shouldn’t I be able to?” So I walked over to the lane that headed straight for the ramp. Everything I had felt about “having no hesitation” or “not being scared” came flooding back into my head the second I pushed off the snow and towards the ramp. Immediately I knew it was a bad idea. I could feel the sled start to turn counter-clockwise, but I still kept going. When I finally hit the ramp the right side of the sled fell underneath me, and I crashed on the compacted ice. I continued to roll down the hill and finally came to a stop when the ground became level. I knew I would be okay, but when I sat up my head was dizzy and I couldn’t turn my head. I ultimately decided to stop sledding and I headed back to the church.

If I hadn’t given in to my peer’s constant suggestions to go down the ramp or if I hadn’t been overly confident I wouldn’t have gotten hurt. I learned that sometimes it is okay to say no and you should always have fear in your life. I believe that if you have fear or you’re scared of something, it means that you care about it and it means something to you. In this case, I think my life is valuable to me. Also, it is okay to say no and it is important that others understand your decision. If I had said no in this situation, I wouldn’t have gotten hurt and I might’ve enjoyed sledding a little bit more. This experience that happened in my life showed other people my mistakes so that they can learn from them, and I can learn from it too.