Season Greetings, it’s the time of year to celebrate and cherish the moments, people, and places that have touched our lives. It is also a time to honor the surprises, disappointments, and challenges both big and small that helped shape and lead us into new directions. I truly hope your year was filled with joy, laughter, and happiness and that next year you choose to make 2008 an even better year.
There are many views of life; some see it as a wild roller coaster ride, others as a journey, and several of us really do not have an analogy for life or even a plan. My goal is to make the most of all of life’s possibilities and to never look back. The majority of us at the end of the year ask, where did the year go? Wow….When I look back on 2007 a smile slowly forms across my face. It all started Christmas of last year.
On Christmas day last year a good friend, Albert Ferro, and my parents came together to buy me RSX Olympic Windsurfing gear. I remember staring at the photos in shock, being totally stoked, and then there was the overwhelming question, Wow…The Olympic Gear….What does this mean? No one knew that answer nor do I think either Albert or my parents really thought about what would happen next. I just learned how to windsurf that summer and have never raced before on any sailboat, dingy, or windsurfer. This gift created a dream of the possibility of representing the
Last Christmas was very special for my family and me. Since we where leaving Florida before Christmas to do our yearly snowboarding trip to Mammoth Ski Resort in CA, we had part of our Christmas early with our dear friends Chuck and Elena. After dinner and presents I remember the sparkle in Elena’s eyes when she talked about supporting me in the 2012 Olympic Games and going to
In January, I was back in graduate school studying for my MBA in central FL at Rollins College exploring all the possibilities of the looming question of, what do I really want to do next? I entered my first windsurfing competition in March, Calema Midwinter’s, on my new RSX gear. I was still at the point of tripping over the center dagger board, stepping on the adjustable mast track on accident, doing a lot of acrobatic stunts to stay upright on the board, and basically spending most of my time lost sailing in the wrong direction. Of course, I had no idea what a windsurfing racing was all about. I just had a simple idea that you go around buoys and whoever is the “fastest” sailor wins. My first of many critical mistakes was not wearing contacts. It is very hard to go around buoys (marks) if you can not see them! Plus, it is important to know the course such as, how do you go around the buoys and in what direction etc. These are only some of the factors I missed and was barely able to sort out by the end of the last race. I do believe I did do the actual course a few times, perhaps…
One of the things I did realized was that the journey to the Olympics was going to be a huge challenge. I needed to learn; strong basic windsurfing skills, how to race, sailing tactics, rules, fundraising, market myself, develop and manage an Olympic Campaign, and travel to enough Regattas to get “some” sailing experience just to name a few things on my formidable “to do list.” As most of you probably realize that if it was going to be easy I would not be interested. So, how did going for 2012 Olympic Games change into going for the 2008 Games? At first thought was to get the experience. The second thought was that if I was going to dedicate the next four years of my life to this pursuit of Olympic Windsurfing racing I better first see what I was getting myself, my friends, family and supporters into. Naturally, in my outgoing, adventurous, and spontaneous way I jumped right into the challenge and never looked back.
Now it was July and the US Olympic Trials where in October when I made my decision to go for it. I took a leave of absence from my MBA program to start training, traveling, and fundraising full time. I could not have done this without the support of my parents, my Olympic committee (Dennis, Linda, Albert, Christine, Jack, Chuck, and the rest of the Calema family), Bikram Yoga on
I had 3 months and the clock was ticking. In the challenge of fundraising and limited time it was an extreme challenge to get racing experience. Most Olympic racing takes place in
I went to the
As I flew to
I can not express the fear, exhaustion, utter shock, anger, and at the same time the laughter I experienced as I was broken down in
Over the next month, we headed to
My adopted
Now, one year later on Boxing Day, the day after Christmas, I am writing you from my
Grant Cunningham, Event Director for 2008 Takapuna Boating Club, his Media Manager (me), Sheila his super cool wife, and yes my two New Zealand sisters who I recruited for the "Christmas Santa Parade." We had a blast announcing both the worlds and Santa is coming to town.
This year just like last Christmas was special. Thank you to my
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
Denise Parris,