Getting Back on the Wheels

You may remember the last time I went roller skating — it was disco night, and the place of jam-packed with drunk people skating while holding beer. It was no wonder I fell and busted my tailbone. My butt hurt for months.

I hadn’t been since. Even once my questionable injury had healed, I was just too. Too tired, too busy, too burned out.

I started skating when I was five. I skated throughout middle and early high school, sometimes as often as four times per week. It became a social experience, but I was always there primarily to skate, and skate hard.

Later, I skated very occasionally. I never stopped dreaming about it, though, because it is part of who I am.

When Lorelei was about two, she had stopped nursing as often, but I still found myself eating as if I had a newborn. I realized something had to give. I had to get exercise. Skating was the obvious choice, and I spent the next two years skating weekly. Sometimes with friends, sometimes alone.

I skated until I was late in my first trimester with Rowan, at which point my center of gravity had shifted enough that to skate at a speed which felt safe also felt boring.

Rowan has drifted back to only nursing a few times per day on weekdays, sometimes as little as once, depending on how he sleeps. But yet, the doughnuts just keep arriving at work.

Be right back. Gotta go check the break room for doughnuts…

All the free food, lack of exercise, and hormonal changes of breastfeeding have taken a toll on my body. I feel sluggish, my face is broken out, and my pants aren’t fitting quite as well as they once did. So I decided I had to take up skating again. Plus exercise is good for anxiety and depression, so yay. I can get a head start on winter.

Since Lorelei is with her grandparents, I decided to start last night, when Zach would only have one kid to put to bed. It was awesome! And exhausting. I was absolutely wiped by the 30 minute mark, which is just sad for me.  I only made it an hour, but by the end I remembered why I love skating. The feeling of muscles moving, the beat of the (admittedly really crappy) music, being good at something that most people aren’t.

I have a love/hate relationship with the time it gives me inside my own brain. I have to be careful to have productive things to mull over, otherwise it can start to spiral a little. But ultimately, skating is great for thinking through thoughts without interruption, without self-distraction, and without falling asleep.

I’m going to try to hold myself accountable to skate once a week again. I just have to hold on to the feeling of the actual skating, to get through the “but omg, this chair is comfortable” feeling.