i quit, i do not fail

To Fail: to fall short of success or achievement in something expected, attempted, desired, or approved
To Quit: to stop, cease, or discontinue


I, Ashley Danae Paddock, am a quitter.

Although I am a very competetive person, and in many things refuse to lose, refuse to give up until I've succeeded... or at least until I cannot physically go on any further... in many things, unfortunately, I would be considered a quitter.

I like to try new things. I like new experiences. I look at things other people can do and want them for myself... not in a jealous way, just in a "oh it would be cool if I could do that..." kind of way. So I attempt. And I usually suck at it, so I quit... without giving it a good enough try.
Many things have come easily to me in my life. If something doesn't come easy, and if I think it takes too much work... If I don't get "good" at it rather quickly, I'll quit... I'll deem it not worthy enough of my time. Because I see him and I see her and they are already so good at it... I could never be as good as them... or, at least it would take too much work... I want to already be good, I do not like the learning process.

Many things in life this aspect of my personality does not apply to... but for some, it does. I am trying to think of all the things I've quit in my life... but I can only think of a few. Now there are a handful of things in my life that I've had to quit due to [much hated] physical limitations... these are not what I'm referring to.

The things I'm referring to are the fact that my right hand never agreed with my left hand when trying to play the piano, or that putting strumming patterns together on a guitar was more difficult then desired, or just telling myself that i can't balance so the unicyle should just stay hanging in the garage, or just because heath got better than me at the bass, it had to be over for me... I quit.

I remember one time, several years ago, heath mentioned something to me about how I quit things. I think it was around the time I was thinking about buying a guitar before I knew how to play. At the time I was taken back by the statement, but lets be serious, it was true. And hey, I'm glad I never bought a guitar... me and the guitar were never going to get along.


All of this to say, I have a reputation of quitting things.
For some reason, unknown to me, I have always had one thing I've wanted to do before I die.
You know some people have a list of things, whether on paper or in their head of accomplishments or things to do before they die? I've always just had one for as long as I can remember.
My one thing is that I want to go out to Colorado and snowboard on the powderpuff mountains of the Rockies.
I agree, it's a strange dream. My family is into summer sports... water sports. We've never been a winter sports family. My parents used to snowmobile but gave that up when we were just small kids so we never got into it... We never did any kind of winter sports. I've never snow skiied or snowboarded, and honestly don't know why I've always had this as a dream. And I've also always realized that if this dream were to come true, I need to learn to snowboard at some point in time. Knowing I have a reputation of quitting things, it was a bit nerve-racking taking that step to learn... because it was something I so badly wanted to love to do.

So come October of 2008 I take a leap and buy a snowboard, never having boarded once in my life... never even snow skiied, never even been to any slopes. I figured that if I bought the board, even if I got discouraged, I'd force myself to keep going because I just dished out so much money for it, I better not waste it. Also, it's something I've always wanted to do... something I've always wanted to love.

This past winter I tried to go out at least once every other week, if not every week. Sunday's are my day off school and just so happens Sundays are the cheap days to go boarding, so it worked out just dandy. I loved every minute of it. Never once did I even get the slightest urge to give up. It was the time of my life... I do not want winter to be over.