Payton Klaer

If you could repeat any moment in your life, would you?

It’s March 2018. You’ve flown out to Northern California with your family. Right now, you’re standing outside in the cold. It’s freezing, but you can’t think about that right now. There’s too much anxiety bottled up inside your mind. In the distance, you can see people old enough to be your grandparents coming down a snowy mountain, popping their skis off, and joining the horde you’re standing in. There are kids trying to conquer the moguls on the trail behind you. Large speakers are blasting popular music – prompting kids of all ages to start dancing and running around. Surrounding you there is a collection of families with kids of all ages. You’re getting soaked from the water coming down from the overcast clouds. It’s something between snow and rain. Again, you don’t care. You’ve never been this nervous before in your life.

Then, someone steps onto the massive stage that has been set up in front of you. They start announcing divisions and names. The first grouping is boys under the age of six in the bronze division. Then silver. Then gold. Then platinum. Next, they announce girls under the age of six in bronze. Then silver. Then gold. Then platinum. They jump ahead to anyone over the age of ninety – it’s impressive to see these people still competing. They rinse and repeat the divisions announcing third place, then second, then first. Everyone cheers even without knowing who these people are. When they say “from Swiss Valley in Jones, Michigan” the collection of people around you scream even louder – that’s your hometown. The place that started your love for skiing. The place that felt like a second home.

As expected, your sister places first in the gold division, and it’s official – she’s the best eleven-year-old female skier in her division in the entire United States. She will celebrate this for months. Even years later, she’ll talk about all of her awards from when she skied.
You continue clapping for people you know, nerves growing as they get closer and closer to your section. The anticipation doesn’t matter. You did the math earlier that day. You’ll be placing third in the silver division. That’s the best you’ve ever done in your seven years of downhill competitive skiing. All you need is one success, and this was going to be it.

Behind you, your parents share a knowing look, and your mom gets out her phone as they begin the fourteen-year-old female racers. You feel like you’ll get sick from the anticipation as they go through the bronze category but then, just like that, it’s your turn.

You get ready to walk through the crowd as they say “third place goes to…” They don’t say your name. Your stomach drops. What if your math was wrong? What if you didn’t place at all? Were you not placing again?

“Second place going to…” Again, it’s not your name. It’s over. You’ve lost another year. Your sister gets another award to hang on her wall, and yours remains empty, other than the low-placing metals you’ve managed to scrape by this season. You’ll never be as good as her, and that’s just a fact. Now you’ve lost your one chance to show that you can succeed.

Suddenly, the air around you shifts. You turn, and your mom has tears in her eyes and a wide smile. What’s happening?

“First place going to Payton Klaer.”

My mom took a video of the whole thing. I just rewatched my name getting called, and I instantly started tearing up. The most prominent part of winning first place (even if it was in the silver division) wasn’t even being up on that stage. It was when I came down and saw my dad with the widest smile I’d ever seen. He hugged me, and I started crying. My mom has the best picture of the two of us right then. I spent seven years skiing and, until that point, had basically nothing to show. I wasn’t the best – scratch that, I was probably one of the worst skiers on my team. It’s easy to admit now, but I hated it then. I wasn’t as good as the other girls my age, and my younger sister could beat me at anything when it came to skiing. It didn’t matter if it was slalom or giant slalom or super giant slalom – she was better than me.

Until that point, I always stood in the audience and clapped for my friends but would cry in the car because, yet again, I hadn’t gotten anything out of freezing in the cold and snow for eight hours. Right then, I finally felt like I had finally done something.

This is one of my favorite memories I have. Ever. So, revisiting it made me really emotional (if you couldn’t tell). If I had the choice, I would go back to this in an instant. The feeling of accomplishing something I had worked so hard for made me feel like I was on cloud nine. There was a pair of little girls on the ski team with me who screamed the entire time I was on stage. Their moms had to tell them to calm down because so many people were laughing at their deafening support. Even watching the video again now, five years later, I heard something new. My sister screamed, “that’s my sister!”

The support and love I felt that night was more than anything I had experienced, and I’m happy that it lives on in my mind. To be honest, I also think it’s amazing my mom managed to get that video of me on the podium – otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to believe it happened.