Olive sat high and straight, feet crossed like she was the queen of England. When she saw that tree her entire face lit up; it was like watching a kid open a jar of cookies for the first time. And although it didn’t last long, I could feel her excitement. I loved her small twitch of a smile and the way her pupils widened, like she found a tree that spoke magic words to her. She sealed the emotion away, but it was enough to show me she could still enjoy the holidays, or at least parts of them. Olive was warming up to me like a frozen lasagna in a 2001 microwave. Slow and steady was not the easiest route, but we’d get there.

“I can’t believe you managed to get this tree on top of here,” she said as she twiddled her thumbs beside me. The rest of her family drove separately so we could have some ‘privacy’, according to her mom—who seemed far too eager to have grandkids already.

“I lift heavy equipment all the time so it was nothing.” I flexed my long arm a little underneath my dark jacket and saw her glance at it. That’s right, baby. You can look—but don’t touch.

She rolled her eyes at my flexible bicep. “You had three grown men helping you. It’s not like you were the only one.”

Womp womp.

“Yeah, but if I hadn’t driven here we wouldn’t have anywhere else to put it. That’s your fault for picking the biggest tree, Grinchy.”

She flushed. “Do you think I should’ve gotten a smaller one?”

I quickly backtracked because Olive letting her guard down was out of character, and I didn’t want to reverse our progress. “I think you should always follow your instincts and trust them. You hesitate too much. Life isn’t that serious, just let loose a little and have fun.”

She scoffed beside me. “The second you don’t take life seriously it will knock you on your ass.”

Woah. I didn’t ask for an elaboration; I assumed she wouldn’t have provided one anyway. After my injury, I was devastated. The thought of not going pro or possibly not skiing again at all was a stab to the gut. It was my lifeline, my first thought in the morning and my last at night. But after a two-week pity party in bed with a torn ACL, I realized life is short. Injuries happen, people leave, life passes—and I’d be damned if I let an injury hold me back. I vowed that I would live each day gratefully, because there wasn’t enough time to overthink or hold back.

Olive was a scared little kitten left out in a storm. Lucky for her, I was the good samaritan neighbor who found her in the street and took her in to give her warm blankets and Christmas cat toys.