Facebook did that thing it does—bringing back memories I was not quite ready for, but somehow needed.

It showed me photographs from eleven years earlier: my first VA adaptive ski trip to Aspen. I was still trying to ski standing up then, strapped into the gear and determined to conquer the mountain with two feet on the snow and a whole lot of pride in my chest.

Looking at those photographs stirred something deep. Years later, I ski differently. On my last two trips, I used a mono-ski—sitting down, adapting, still moving, and still feeling the mountain beneath me.

Part of me still wrestled with that shift.

There is something raw about seeing yourself from a decade ago doing something you cannot—or no longer choose to—do today. There is grief in that comparison. But there is growth too.

Back then, I fell. A lot. I needed help getting up, just as I sometimes do in life. But I kept returning to the mountain, and that part of me has not changed.

What changed was my definition of success.

It is no longer about standing tall on skis. It is about showing up. It is about allowing joy to adapt to the body I have now instead of demanding the body I had before.

People may see a move from standing to sitting as a loss. For me, the mono-ski also became a release—a new kind of freedom. I was no longer chained to proving something. I could stop measuring the adventure by posture and begin measuring it by presence.

I missed that year’s Aspen trip because life had other plans: the sale of my house and a season of major transition. But those photographs reminded me that this journey was never about staying the same.

Life changed. It did not end. The way forward changed with it.