I went to the roller skating rink last week. Before that, I can’t remember the last time I went—perhaps as a birthday party attendee around a decade and a half ago? I would have been an unwilling participant back then, unused to skating and on-edge at social events, especially at one in which I would need to do something I was not good at.
If I’m being honest, I did not want to go this time around, either, but my brother was in town and asked that we go. He loves fun and joy, you see, and has the impetus to try new things, and to try old things, too. Things that once brought him a youthful joy. He still loves his old Lego sets and loves and driving around his college campus on his razor scooter, and he has insisted that Christmastime remain a veritable feast of gifts; these all speak to me as his desire to maintain a grasp on the special, shimmering sheen of happy, youthful memories.
My brother, though he is no longer a child, makes a point to continue to build those memories. I don’t think it is a goal of his—it is not so much his way of staying young, it is merely who he is and is the way he sees best fit to enjoy his life. It is the lens through which he looks at life. Enjoyment. Passion. Fun.
I tend to get caught up in the bittersweetness of the changing years, I allow that change and that bittersweetness to make a home in my heart. I rarely go out of my way to bring those years back. But I admire the way my brother lives. I respect it—except when it has us going to the roller rink.
The place itself is beyond dingy inside and out. The exterior of the building is gray and drab, made of stone that has likely never seen a power wash in the 75 years of the rink’s operational run, and the interior is a swamp of history—retro 70s carpet, black with zany shapes and colors cast across it like strewn confetti, that at least must have been new once; a giant quarter-operated Pac Man video game, air hockey table, and claw machine; weird circular mushroom-looking seats where everyone sits to put on the skates, the seats fully adorned with the same carpet as the floor; a cubby room, that is, a room of wooden cubbies a la a middle school band room instrument storage room—no locks, nothing to prevent someone from absconding with your valuables; a wall of quarter-operated lockers that, of course, do not work, leaving you no choice but to use the cubby room; and admission prices sitting at $11.95, which is quite respectable for 2025, I say.
The pinks and yellows of the triangles and scalloped circles on the carpet glowed in the black light that also illuminated my white converse and my brother’s tennis shoes as we sat on the mushroom seats and swapped our shoes for skates. The carpet is in fairly good cosmetic shape considering everything, but everything in the rink had a dirty feel to it that made my skin crawl. Not to mention putting on the rented stakes; shoes (if one can call them that) that many others have worn and sweated in. Gross.
But brother wanted to go and I wanted to spend time with my brother while he was in town and doing so is worth braving some gross shoes and a few icky walls. Especially because I usually do end up having a good time once we go. Whether I care or not for the activity my brother wants to do, my brother approaches it with such a zest and genuine enjoyment that it is simply a fun time with my sibling, even if nasty shoes are involved.
So, we went to the roller rink.
Once I laced up my skates, I stood up and instantly knew I was in trouble. I tend to think of myself as a coordinated, athletic individual, but as I took my first step I knew not a single person in that room would ever believe that fact. I couldn’t get my feet to move right; it was impossible to skate on the carpet—you had to walk, but, remember, the shoes you are wearing have wheels. So, you’re walking about two inches taller than usual and with far less security that you are used to. And you have to navigate the Pac Man machine and the Air Hockey table and all the other the weird circular mushroom-looking seats where everyone else is putting on their skates and turning themselves into the retro urban version of newborn fawns.
Somehow, I made my way to the cubby room to put our shoes away, and somehow, I made my way back to the entrance to the actual skate floor. It may or may not have taken me five minutes to cross the total twenty or so feet of distance in those tasks. The skate floor that was, of course, populated primarily with six year olds and guests of Charlotte’s fourth birthday party. Also on the rink was one family comprised of an expert skater father, an expect skater teen aged girl, and perhaps the worst one out on the floor at the time, a boy around the age of seven with a bright red shirt and a propensity for slamming into the wall with a raucous bang and falling to the ground in a heap. To his credit, he always got back up and kept skating, sure to fall again within the next two minutes.
A surefire way to break an arm. It’s all I could think about. That was the way I was to spend my Sunday afternoon. An arm, or perhaps a wrist. Could see an ankle going out as well. Falling would take me out, guaranteed. Looking stupid I could handle, being bad at at skating I could handle, but falling and breaking myself for fucking rollerskating would be unforgivable.
My brother didn’t seem to have the same reticence. He got his skates on and went right for the rink. I stood on the outskirts and watched him flail around as he figured out how to step, how to glide. I laughed my ass off as he flailed and fell down. I got a few great videos of it, too. But amidst those wobbles, falls, and flails, he figured out just enough about how to propel and glide that he actually moved forward. He skated away from me, out of earshot, removed me from his focus, and began his loops around the rink.
He had fully invested, had committed to our purpose of being there. He wanted to spend time with me, yes, but he cared about the skating, too. And I still waited on the sidelines, too terrified of falling to dare step onto the rink.
I felt a burst of disgust, a blast of the slimy self-deprecation telling myself I was pathetic for lingering, for not even being willing to try.
I looked at my brother again, now rounding the far turn of the track-like rink, wobbling and pinwheeling his arms and, lets be honest, looking like he had no clue what he was doing and had no skill whatsoever. And he didn’t care at all. He’d wanted to try it, so he had insisted we’d come. Had wanted to do something new, had wanted to do something old, and thought this would soothe that itch. Was willing to fully meet himself at whatever level he was at in order to have the fun he sought. Being good or being bad were all the same: it was skating. The point was to be there, the point was to try. Given the grin he’d had as he’d skated off, it had already achieved what he’d come there to do.
He could have fun doing this, he could damn the consequences and enjoy himself. He could focus only on the thing itself and his experience of it—try something new to add a splash of color into his week, his month, his year. He could focus on experiencing.
If he could, so could I.
I teetered to the rink.
I damn near instantly fell. I tried stepping—I knew there was a swish and a glide sort of flow to it and tried to get that into my step, but I was fully doing a scrambling walk. I stayed close to the wall, hardly allowing myself to stray from it. I held onto that wall like a lifeline, trying to learn which muscles in my legs would help keep me upright and where I should lean my weight to, again, stay upright. I was aware of all the people on the outside—the family members of the birthday party attendees, the siblings and the adults too cool to try it out—watching, and for a moment I burned with shame.
Then: For what? Why feel stupid? I am out here and they are not. I can be as bad as I want to at this, at least I am trying.
I knew I would be bad at this. And from the moment I put on the skates I knew my fear would make me even worse because it would prevent me from really risking anything. But the thought gave me the option to drop anything but the knowledge that I would do the best I could. Good or bad, I was skating.
I made my way around the rink, stilted and awkward. Children soared around me, that one family and their weirdly good dad and weirdly good daughter and even their weirdly awful son ran rings around me. My arms waved this way and that as my balance wavered. I wobbled so hard I had to take breaks about every ten feet or so. I gave no thought to trying to avoid the others at the rink—even the youngest of the kids there had more skill to avoid me than I had to navigate around them.
That first lap around that tiny rink took me probably about three minutes and I “rested” at the end in part because it was hard and I was tired, but also because I needed to recuperate my ego.
Mental permission to be bad at something doesn’t instantly make up for years of expectations I’ve leveraged upon myself. I am used to being good at things. I am used to operating within my comfort zone and to doing well. I needed a second to let the acceptance sink in: I was not comfortable here and I wasn’t going to be good, either. But that didn’t need to make it any less fun.
Because…that first lap was fun. I thought for sure it would be horrible and I would stake for about twenty minutes before calling it; I had gone only to spend time with my brother, but wobbling around the rink had surprised me with the joy I felt. I wasn’t good at it. No debate about that and certainly no hiding it. But I was starting at absolutely ground zero—there was nowhere to go but up. I literally could not get worse. Which meant I had plenty before me that I could learn. My brain engaged, I got interested in learning how to skate, trial by error. Another thing I am not used to: learning on the go. I tend to lean into research, learn everything I can ahead of time and go in with my wits fully about me. Not here, not this time. There was only learning how to do it with the wheels on my feet and my arms pinwheeling every which way.
I tried another lap. It looked much the same as the first; I paused every ten feet or so on the walls, I caught my balance with flailing teeters forward and backwards. Kids a quarter of my age literally ran laps around me. But I felt a little steadier on my feet, a little less scared of falling.
Around my fifth lap or so, I actually started to get the hang of it. I didn’t need to use my arms to balance, I teetered less. After about ten laps I could glide for a while. My breaks were actually to rest, not to recoup my dignity. That had gone out the window laps ago and I did not care anymore. After about fifteen I could navigate the turns with maybe 18% grace—or I could at least do the turns in one arced movement rather than six or so bouts of straight lines. I was able to make it around the loop in about a minute and I didn’t need to pause between loops.
After five minutes, I was smiling. After ten, I was glad we had come. After thirty minutes, I was sweating pretty good. After an hour, I was impressed with all the work that father and daughter must have put in to be able to skate with the grace they did. After an hour and a half, my muscles were tired enough that I started really wobbling again and I needed breaks between laps again. My brain had figured out most of what I needed, but my muscles, unused to this mysterious form of exercise, had taken all they could handle. When the rink closed, I was ready to be done. When the rink closed, I was also really glad I had gone.
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