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Jadyn Dalrymple

Snowboarder, Hiker, Traveler, Story Teller

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If I Could Change A Day

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My mom is publishing a book this month through BreckCreate. It is a beautiful collection of short stories and artwork from Middle School and High School students in Summit County. You can find it here on Amazon. My brother Isaac will have his Peregrine Falcon drawing in it. This is the short story that I wrote for the book. It is based on a true story, but not totally true.

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If I could change a day, I would change the day when my world collapsed, or so I thought it had. It was a cold, snowy day in November. Sure, I had thought that my life would change a little bit that day, but I never would have thought that when I climbed in the car that morning, it would change like it did.

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I sat in the car waiting. If my mom didn’t get in the car in two minutes, I would be late to one of most exciting days of the season – the first slopestyle competition this year.

“Sorry,” my mom said as she hurriedly scrambled into the car. She started the car, and we pulled out into the gloomy, snowy day. I stuck in my earbuds and looked out the window. It was about a forty minute drive, and I barely got any sleep the night before, so after a few minutes, I was fast asleep.

When we finally got there, my mom shook me awake.

Today was the day I had been training for all season. I wanted to win it all. I could feel it. I was going to do a trick that I had been practicing for months. And if I landed it, I could win the competition.

I came up to the jump. I prepared myself for the back 5, slight bend in the knees, ready to pop. Arms ready to throw the spin. And most importantly a focus to finish my trick perfectly. I went off the lip, popping as I went off. I spun, but I had thrown it so hard that I kept spinning. I over-rotated. I hit the snow.

I landed hard, hitting my shoulder and collarbone. I slid down the landing until I came to a stop. The pain in my collarbone was increasing by the second, and I stifled a little scream. I waited for what seemed like hours, not sure if I could get up. When I tried, the pain was too great, so I just lay there. Ski patrol came skiing over to me with the sled ready. They gently took off my snowboard and laid me in the sled. They rode down, and I caught a glimpse of my mother, quickly rushing down behind me, a look of worry on her face.

They rushed me to the hospital, and the doctors checked me out. Turns out I had broken my collarbone. Badly. They told me I would be out for 8 weeks. When they told me this, I could feel the tears, pushing at my eyes, wanting to spill out like Niagara Falls. I tried to hold them back, but I couldn’t. I weeped. Not because of the pain – that was manageable. No, I was weeping because of all the memories, and fun I would miss, and of course, most of all, I cried because of the practice and new tricks, that would be learned, without me.

I got into the car and looked out the window. Still snowing. I had sat in this same seat a few hours earlier. But there was a big difference between earlier and now. Then, I had been excited, and ready to put down my run. Now, I felt that my life was over.

I walked into my room and fell back onto my bed. Today had not been the day that I thought it would be. I tried to tell myself that lots of people had it a lot worse than me being out for 8 weeks from snowboarding. Most people didn’t even have the opportunity to snowboard. My mom helped me get on my pajamas. I was still crying a little. Even though I didn’t have it that bad, I was still very disappointed.

I woke up the next day forgetting what had happened the day before. But then I felt the pain in my collarbone, and it all came back to me. I got up and went downstairs. My mom and dad were down there, and I went and sat down with them.

“Hey,” my mom said. “I met this girl a few days ago, and I thought you might like her, so I set it up so you can meet her today if you feel ok.”

“I guess so,” I replied.

Who knows? Maybe making a new friend who didn’t snowboard would be good.

I walked into the coffee shop, and after a few minutes, I saw a girl and her mom crossing the street, and I knew that it was her. There was something about her that I just knew we’d be friends.

We stayed and talked in the coffee shop for an hour, and it turned out that we had a lot in common. I really liked her, and I was so happy to meet her. This new friend made having my broken collarbone a lot easier.

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So yes, if I could change a day, I would change the day that I broke my collarbone. But looking back, if it didn’t happen, I probably wouldn’t have been able to get to know my new friend or had as much time to spend with her that winter. If I hadn’t broken my collarbone, as bad as it seemed at the time, I wouldn’t be where I am with snowboarding right now. When I came back from my injury it took me a little bit of time to get over my fear of jumps and of ever doing a back 5 again, but after I got over that, I was stronger than ever and progressed like crazy.

About the Author

My name is Jadyn Dalrymple. I’m 12 years old, and I‘m in 6th grade. I love to snowboard, skateboard, rock climb, and play tennis. I have loved telling stories since I was very young. I also love to journal about my everyday life. This year, during early season of snowboarding, I broke my arm doing a front board on a rail. So this story is kind of based on that event.  Breaking my arm was a little setback in my season, but it didn’t mean my season was over. I managed to overcome this setback and ended getting 5th in Slopestyle at USASA Nationals.

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Our Trip – Oral Story

Almost 5 years ago, my dad told us that we had one month to sell everything we had, leave our home, and travel around the western United States.

I was seven at the time and didn’t totally know what was going on. But I didn’t want to leave because I didn’t want to leave my friends and my things and my home where I’d grown up. We had a fun going away party from all our friends who were sad to see us go. I cried when we drove away from our neighborhood, as I realized we were actually leaving.

My parents told us we could take one bag with our clothes and favorite things. I think I had more than one bag, though, but all of our stuff ended up fitting in our car. We stayed in hotels, a few houses, a yurt, and couple campsites.

We visited National Parks all around the Western US. And at each one we would go on a hike and explore different trails. And of course, my mom had to take lots of pictures, because that’s what she does.

Since we didn’t stay in places for a long time, we didn’t have enough time to really get to know friends too well, so we usually just hung out with each other. We had a lot of fun together as a family.  We would take hikes in the dark with our flashlights, eat great food, and learned to snowboard together. I realized that you don’t really need a lot of stuff to be happy. We made so many memories with just each other exploring the outdoors

We got to visit around 38 National Parks. My favorite national park was Glacier. We went paddleboarding on lake McDonald and it was beautiful, you could see all the way down because the water was so clear. I also loved sleeping in the yurt – it was one of the highlights of Glacier.

Since I was homeschooled, we went to a bunch of different places to do our schoolwork. We would sometimes read and work in the car, at a coffee shop, or out in nature. We listened to a lot of Audio books together and learned about all the places we visited.

Although I was sad to leave my home at the time, I am now so happy that I left Austin. I would have never imagined that I would be living in the mountains, snowboarding, and going to school here. So I’m so glad that my dad made that decision.

 

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Teal’s Story

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This is a story I wrote for my class with Bravewriter. I had to pick a color and go on a walk, looking for the color and then freewrite afterwards. I picked the color, teal. My mom picked the color, yellow. Here’s my story:

 

Once upon a time there was a rock name Teal. Teal was the only one of her color there were many orange characters and yellow and red but no teal and nobody wanted to play with her. Which made her very sad.

She thought it was because she wasn’t the same color as them but it was really because they were jealous of her. They thought she was so much prettier than them so for some odd reason they didn’t play with her.

So one day Teal decided to go out on a journey to find someone who was teal like her. She met very many different people along the way such as magenta mushrooms, yellow leaves but never anyone who was teal.

She asked each and every one of them if they knew anyone who was teal but each and every one of them said no you are special.

The last person she met on her journey was a beautiful white shiny rock who said her name was Shimmer Rock. Shimmer Rock was the most beautiful being Teal had ever seen and the nicest.

Shimmer Rock invited Teal to come to her house for some tea and something to eat. Teal gratefully accepted for she hadn’t eaten in a while and was starving. So they walked to Shimmer Rocks house which was very beautiful. After Teal had eaten enough Shimmer Rock asked Teal to tell her story so Teal told her story and Shimmer Rock didn’t interrupt once only listening intently.

Once Teal was done Shimmer Rock said when I was younger I used to be sad too because I was different and everybody kept telling me that I was special but I didn’t believe them. I just wished that I was like everyone else, but then I met a purple flower named Delicate Wild and she explained to me that I was special but that I could be whatever I wanted to be, but I always had to remember to always be myself.

“And so I am going to tell you the same thing, Teal,” Shimmer Rock said: “Remember to always be yourself.”

 

 

THE END

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