07/04/2022
TL;DR learning new things is hard and scary. I didn't get hurt. I did cry.
I've always wanted to learn to skate. Skating has always terrified me. Before the pandemic, I'd gone to the skatepark with my kids and learned a few basic things like how to get on a board and how to go down a small ramp. I haven't skated at all since pandemic started. I've decided that I want to pick that up again when I can. A few weeks ago, I asked to teach me how to do an ollie. I ended up falling and bruising my wrist and scaring the s**t out of myself. We've been to the skate park a couple times since then and, heck, that fall has latched onto my brain like a hugely traumatic event. Even getting back on roller blades (which are much more familiar to me) has been terrifying, and it took everything I had to go down a small ramp.
This weekend, we found an empty skatepark with lots of flat space, and I pushed past the "I'm going to die" feeling and spent a while just riding around in circles. Trying to teach my brain that I was okay standing on a moving skateboard. After probably an hour, that started to feel better, and I decided I was going to go down the only ramp at the park. It's not a big ramp, it's not steep, but it's longer than the ones I've tried before. As soon I got close to it, I realized it was a bigger challenge, *cue overthinking*. I asked Kate to help me mentally prepare for what I needed to do with my body to go down successfully. And then I spend over half an hour getting over the anxiety that I was going to fall and all the possible ways I could injure myself.
All of that build up for a few seconds of doing The Thing, and then I fell anyway. I didn't get hurt. I did sit there and cry for a bit afterwards. It was terrifying and I think I'm going back to smaller ramps for a bit so I can build up the muscle memory.
