Lessons in Loneliness, and a Little Redemption on the Gondola

Walking over a crunchy layer of snow under an awakening sky, not long before Christmas of 2008, I boarded my dad’s Subaru Outback for a ride to the ski area. And I was in a bad place.It didn’t matter how cozy I felt sitting on the heated seat of my Old Man’s aged but immaculately cared-for car; it couldn’t have helped to be back in the comforting halls of my childhood home for the three-week break between semesters. Riding to the mountain that morning for my first shift a