Cross-Country Snow

            After reading through the Nick Adams stories, this one was the easiest one for me to relate to was “Cross-Country Snow.”  Especially right now during exams, it is very easy for me to fantasize forward to break filled with days of nothing but sleeping.  However, we are awakened with the sad reality of school and the fact that we must study our lives away for a week before we are rewarded with a break.

As much as we are uneasy about sacrificing for exam week, Nick is even more so because he has to make a sacrifice for the rest of his life.  He had a realization that he can no longer fantasize of skiing with his friend every day or travel.  He knows that he has to do what is expected of him by his wife and future son, just as his friend knows that he must return to school.  Nick has come to terms with the fact that he is going to have a child and knows that he needs to make sacrifices in his life for it.  He was not ready at first to have his kid, but after a while he knows he is and this is why he is willing to go back to the United States.

This is a scary thought for me right now to think that at some point in the future I will be expected to make difficult decisions, but I know that when the time is right I will be ready.  Some of these decisions are already surfacing as I am trying to get an internship and thinking about what I am going to do with my life after I graduate with my degree.  It can be a daunting task to think about knowing the impact of these decisions on my future, but I hope to be able to choose what is right as Nick does even though it may not sound as appealing as fantasy world.