Out of Comfort Zone Official Entry #1: Wakeboarding
Hola! For those of you who don't know, I have decided to step out of my comfort zone this summer and do five things I wouldn't normally do. However, if an opportunity presents itself to do something I'm not super excited to do, I'll force myself to try it. Yesterday was one of those moments.
My roommate's coworker's family friends borrowed a boat for the Fourth of July. And my roommate, her coworkers and I joined the boating family for a day at Emigrant Lake. The first thing we did was decided to have everyone try wakeboarding.
Now, I know what you're thinking: "That's so cool. Good for you." Well, you're wrong. Immediatly I was conflicted as to how this was gonna play out. First off, I wanted to try everything that I could. On the other hand, I am acutely aware of my overweight body and how this was gonna play out. The chances of me actually standing up in any water sports considering my weight is greatly limited. Now, the equaltarian Millenial in you thinks that shouldn't stop me from trying. And clearly you have never been overweight. The Normals would most likely get tired of politely letting me try things and I would end up not really getting an equal chance. This is what usually happens and this is what did indeed happen.
First, Justin, my roommate's co-worker tried a solo water ski. He tried about five times and gave up and tried wakeboarding. He fell over a few times. It was time for my roommate to try wakeboarding. Alyssa, my roommate, has a lot of muscles from volunteering at a cheering gym. So she was easily able to get up on the wakeboard her first try. Everyone was excited and took pictures and video and were hooting and hollering.
Next, Shelly, the family friend, tried. She almost got up a few times before giving up with a sigh. Then Randa, my roommate's coworker and friend tried. Randa is one of those people that everyone immediately loves and we were all rooting for her. But after a few times she was still struggling. Ben, the driver of the boat, really wanted to see someone try kneeboarding, so he suggested Randa try it. She had a bit of better luck with that and we were able to get some pictures of her trailing behind the boat on her knees.
So now it was my turn. Randa said that the knee board was easier so I said I would try that, even though I would have rather tried the wakeboard. Oh well, I figured whatever was the least inconvience on the rest of the people. As it was, everyone's attention had already turned away from me and I slipped anonymously off the boat and into the water.
Let me tell you this: knee boarding is hard and not for someone who has zero good experience with water sports. A knee board is a small surfboard lined with rubber that you freely balence on. You are not strapped to anything and so you have to balance on the board in the water with your knees alone while holding a floating triagle strapped to the boat. Sounds confusing? Yeah, add water to that and you have my experience. Needless to say I spent most of my time falling off the board before the boat even moved away! Eventually, I just layed on the board at let the boat drag me until I was bored (about 4 seconds).
By now I am thoroughly embarressed and well aware that people were sick of my attempts to knee board. So I calmly swam back to the boat and climbed up (an activity that is quite embarresing for a fat chick, let me tell you. It took all my strength just to get my boobs on the little platform before I was able to belly flop like a fish and roll my way onto the boat). I quietly mentioned I wanted to try the wakeboard but I don't think anyone heard me because they were all getting ready for Justin to try wakeboarding again. And there really wasn't a point in pressing the matter because I really mean it when I say people were tired of me trying to attempt water sports: despite the dozens of pictures everyone was taking of everyone else's success and failures in the water, no one cared enough to take a single one of me.
This time he was able to get up on the board and succesffuly board for about two minutes while I filmed. We then went tubing which is something that I am actually comfortable with and quite enjoy! I didn't go so fast as to flip off the raft, like Randa and Justin did, however, which was quite fine with me because my contacts were already moving around my eyeballs enough as it is!
And so that is pretty much it. I came, I saw, I floundered. Wakeboarding is now checked off the list (even if I didn't technically do it) and I won't be trying it again. No need to embarrass myself twice!
Operation Comfort Zone Success/Failure Rating: Failure.
