The 2022 Senior Perspectives is the 17th in a series of annual collections. Senior captains and representatives of teams at Harvard have been invited to contribute viewpoints based on personal experience from both their senior seasons and full varsity careers at Harvard.

Nellie Ide
Hometown: Minneapolis, Minn.
Concentration: Neuroscience
House Affiliation: Mather

On February 26th, 2022, I stood in the start of my last ski race ever. All day long, I had avoided saying those words, or even thinking them. As soon as the word "ever" popped into my head, tears flew to my eyes faster than I could tell myself that it's dangerous to ski with blurry vision. Yet, when I looked down at my last course ever, the flimsy dam I had built against these emotions collapsed and I was forced to reckon with the end of my ski career. 

I learned to ski when I was two years old and started racing when I was eight. Thoughts of skiing have guided me through every single day since then. They fueled me through tough workouts, occupied my daydreams and haunted me with nightmares of showing up to a ski race naked.
Despite the stresses of a highly competitive and unforgiving sport, I continued to love ski racing deeply and looked forward to every moment I clicked into my skis. I love the feeling of snapping an arc on fresh corduroy, the sound of slalom gates slapping my shin guards and the view of the sunrise over the mountains during an early morning training session. 

I am incredibly grateful that I have been able to pursue my academic passions at a place like Harvard, while also continuing to ski at a high level. This gratitude made my last ski race even more emotional, as I knew that once I pushed out of the start gate, this part of my life would be over. I would no longer be a ski racer. It felt impossible for me to figure out who I would be without this part of my identity.

As I grappled with this terrifying prospect, I realized that skiing at Harvard had prepared me perfectly for situations like these. After all, competing on a ski team from Boston, a city without mountains anywhere nearby, seems almost impossible in itself. Yet, after the initial surprise of realizing that we drive over 25 hours in an average week, we all adjusted. We learned to do homework in the two-hour drive to practice, make the most of our training runs, then hustle back to campus for evening classes. The impossible became possible. If I could overcome this challenge and get faster each year of college, then I could figure out my identity without skiing.

However, my identity crisis wasn't the only reason I didn't want to push out of the start gate. Two of my teammates stood a few feet behind me and the thought of leaving them behind was a painfully perfect metaphor. When I first heard the Harvard Varsity Club's slogan "Your Family for Life," I just thought it was a cheesy exaggeration. But during the past four (okay… five) years at Harvard, the ski team has become my family in every sense of the word.
Ski racing is an individual sport that is packaged as a team sport for the purpose of college competition. Yet, our culture feels more collaborative and supportive than any other team I've been a part of. When one teammate is on course, the rest of us cluster together to watch like a pack of nervous parents, biting our nails and muttering supportive phrases. When they cross the finish line with a fast time, it feels like we all crossed that line together.
After spending hundreds of hours together in frigid weather and cramped vans, there's no option but to always show our authentic selves, no matter how tired or grumpy or goofy. We play silly games, fight like siblings and speak in our own language. It feels strange to be separated from them for any length of time, and we joke about separation anxiety kicking in after about 12 hours. This was less of a joke during COVID, as we were living hundreds of miles away from each other. Yet, we continued to work out together on Zoom every week for a year and a half. When I felt isolated and lonely, their grunts and heavy exhales coming through my computer speakers reminded me that I was not alone.

So how could I push out of the start gate and leave them behind, heading into my post-grad life all alone? Who could I compare frostbite with or go to for a much-needed hug? As I looked back at my teammates behind me, I remembered that the HVC slogan is not "Your Family Only When You're in College and Then You're Alone." Just because I'm no longer ski racing with my teammates does not mean that they won't have my back and I won't have theirs. I know that this team will be my family for life.

With that realization, I blinked away my tears, placed my poles over the start wand and pushed out of the start gate.