Love can make you crazy. I have to admit, the first time I fell in love, it wasn’t with a boy. No. It was with snow. There was something magical about it. The way it looked like the stars were falling out of the sky. The way it sparkled like diamonds when the moon hit it. The way that it muffled all the ugly sounds, and made the world look clean and innocent. When I was finally old enough to make a choice about where I would live – college – I chose Buffalo, NY. They were known to have a lot of snow.

How is it, then, that I ended up in Florida?

This was my sixth winter in the sunshine state. A year of record snowfalls – everywhere but here. One day it snowed in 48 states – Florida was among the two that missed out. I was homesick. Lovesick. So I did what any love crazed loon would do. I booked a trip to Colorado for spring break. Guess what, family? We’re going skiing!

What was I thinking? A forty-two year old woman with rheumatoid arthritis, who has never skied downhill (I’m a cross-country girl), with osteoporosis in one hip and osteopenia in the other… skiing on a mountain with an elevation of 8,000 feet? It’s official, I’ve lost it. My knees hurt when the April humidity rolls in; my wrists are already aching and we haven’t left yet.

I’m terrified. A victim of my own stupidity. A victim of love.

Yet, I can’t help but think that this might be the best time of my children’s lives. They may experience the joy of falling in love, with snow, like I did at their age. And maybe, just maybe, I will be able to rekindle that old romance, despite the years that have passed, the way my body has aged. Maybe RA hasn’t truly robbed me of my first, my one true love, after all…