Life lessons on rollerskates.

My friend booked an all L.A. experience for us. Have you seen Beyonce's Blow video? That's it. Old school neon lights four wheel music skating. 

I had done it before. In a crappy improvised skating room in my small town beach home. I was good. I was so good, I had the confidence to ask Santa Claus for an all-liner pair of rollerblades. They were supposed to be for the more advanced kids. I was the queen of skates. I would skate at least five hours a day. I would move up and down our four story house's  wooden and uneven staircase with confidence. I would skip speed bumps and race the red lights on the avenues against my mother's orders. 

Of course I fell from time to time. I would bleed a little, especially in the knees, but that never stopped me from getting those funny shoes laced the next day. I would wear the scars proudly, and stay out skating until my mother called me back home when it started getting dark.

I would continue this confidence on ice when I lived in Canada for a year. I would even learn how to jump and twirl over the ice. This was much more challenging. Somehow, the ice hurt more than the rugged asphalt. 

20 odd years passed by, and I completely forgot how to rollerblade. 

Fully 

erased it 

from my memory. 

Somehow, after my second divorce, I learned I needed to hang on to all healthy things, especially things that made me happy. 

As I was packing "essential" things out of my second married home, I oddly knew my rollerblades were important. 

I didn't have the nerve to re-learn at 26, just before my first divorce. This time, 11 years after their purchase, I knew I couldn't leave them behind. 

And so, a couple of days after leaving my sweet ex husband, I put those retro shoes on. I skated. 

I didn't fall down, even though I knew this was a very big possibility. The fact that it didn't happen, gave me the confidence to think I wasn't completely clueless. Maybe I was, but confidence is very important to keep you going. Knowing that even if you fail, you can always stand up and try again is even more important, as I have learned growing up. 

I am 37 now. After a couple of times on my wheels, skating quietly on my own, I traveled to L.A. to visit my friend.  We were doing something different tonight. We were disco roller skating, the vanilla pop version of Elliot Page's "Whip It".

 

I started by his hand. I lost him. I quickly found some essential truths in life:

1) you may start this race with someone. In time, you might need to part ways due to your different speeds or goals in life. That's alright... others will come, and you will also have fun on your own. 

2) it doesn't matter if you're young, old, small, fat, smart, disabled... Life will always work out differently for everyone, even if movies make you think the rich and white have it figured out. Time and dedication are always the best teachers.

3) you need to pay attention to your own path. This is the only thing that will keep you from falling, or falling less. It always helps if you stop comparing to others and concentrate on your own balance, you might also have way more fun. 

I did however find some exceptions that made me re-think my theories:

A) parents. They stop to help their kids. They often fall. I wonder how faster these kids would learn without their parent's hands. And how much more the bruises hurt on the adults than what they might on the toddlers. 

B) couples. Often I saw pairs that had very different abilities. I wonder if they held hands to enjoy themselves, to teach their loved one, or to not make them feel bad about being more advanced. I wondered if holding hands actually helped the evolution of the less-capable skater. I also assumed this challenge would be a very small fraction of similar situations on other areas of their personal lives and relationships. 

Somehow, this cement rink seems like a beautiful life metaphor. These are just some side notes on a different Sunday night. 

I left something out... How beautiful it is to pair reality to music! Both on the skate floor and in life. I did figure out skating is much more fun if you can handle singing and dancing at the same time, even if your skating isn't as good... and yes, both my friend and I fell... we laughed it out and kept on going until our time was up.

Read "The truth is I am bisexual."