2016

The minutes before the new year 2016 I found myself standing on top of a chair next to ten other people on top of chairs. We were holding 12 grapes each in our hands because my spanish fiend Esther had told us in her charming accent that “on New Year’s Eve you stand on top of chairs and then you eat 12 grapes in 12 seconds.”

I was looking around me and saw my friends from all over the world as in slow motion getting ready, we were outside in the warm humid Phillippino air and the sky was lit up with a million stars. I remember thinking how lucky I was and how sure I was of my future and the 2016 season. Everything was going to be perfect, I had a great set of sponsors, a perfect plan to move to Texas with my perfect boyfriend, I was riding better than ever and my head was overflowing with ideas for the next season. The countdown started and I started to chug down my Spanish grapes (I have absolutely no idea why but when Esther tells you to do something you do it). The fireworks started and I got a big New Years kiss from JB, I had no idea that my 2016 would turn out nothing like I had expected.

Two weeks later I got dropped by two of my biggest sponsors even though being promised contracts for 2016. This made me quickly reconsider my financial situation but after some thought I actually started appreciating this opportunity as it meant new doors opened for me. I started working towards my new goals and on the new equipment I recieved I started riding better than ever making me want to ride and progress every day.

A couple of months later I woke up in the morning and decided today was going to be a rest day. After driving up to the cable and seeing the glassy water with absolutely no line I decided to go for some laps anyways. With my mind on other things and muscles that were completely exhausted I felt myself charge into a kicker and go big, weirdly enough a bit bigger than usual and I wasn’t ready for the landing. I felt board touched the water and the nauseating feeling of my knee going backwards and hyperextending. I could hear myself screaming, tasting the warm water in my mouth and feeling the immense feeling of “something is not right, my knee is not supposed to feel this way”. I looked over my shoulder and saw that the cable had stopped and about 15 people were swimming towards me in the water. I instantly got embarressed and stopped screaming but my eyes kept running from the pain. I got helped ashore by my friends and for some reason kept telling people I was okay. Except for when I saw JB, I remember telling him over and over again “something is not right”. After resting with compression and ice for a few hours I tried to walk and to my great relief I could! I had some pain sure but I could put weight on and walk around if I walked slowly. I remember telling people “phew close call, if I had tore my ACL I don’t know what I would’ve done”. A few days after that I started wakeboarding again, even though my knee felt really sore I pushed through the pain as my physiotherapist friend had told me “it’s probably just a sprain”.

A while later after getting an MRI I got the results in my hands and I tore the envelope open. I could feel how the walls were closing in around me, that familiar knot was forming in my throat and my eyes started burning with tears as I read the words “Complete Rupture of the Anterior Cruciate Ligament”. I sat down in the waiting room in the hospital. In one moment all of my plans had demolished and gone out the window. I would not be moving to Texas, I would not be fulfilling any of the dreams or projects I had in mind for 2016, maybe the rest of my sponsors would drop me too?

Luckily this is not what happened, I went home to Sweden and got accepted to my first hand choice of university, my sponsors stand by me and try to support me as much as they can and I had surgery to fix my knee and started working with Swedens best physiotherapists. Usually around the new year I look back into the old one and write a post about where I’ve been, what contests I’ve traveled to and what I’ve learned. This year the travel list is fairly short (I even lost my rewards card with my airline) and the contest list is nonexistent. However, the list of what I’ve learned is, I think, the longest it has ever been.

“When you look closely you discover that what happens is the best thing that can happen”
Byron Katie