Skate Away

So I mentioned in last week's post on The Joy Diet that what I really wanted to do was go rollerskating. I got lots of encouragement in the comments and decided I would go this week. I made a special point of telling my sister. She is my creative cohort and helps keep me accountable.

Can you guess what happened next?

I made plans to go on Tuesday night and then spent about 24 hours talking myself out of it. I would feel self-conscious and dorky. Max needed me. Who would do the dinner dishes? It's a giant hassle for such a silly whim. Which devolved into, who do you think you are? You'll look ridiculous. You will fall down and there will be no one there to laugh about it with. You will embarrass yourself.

Yes, gremlins working overtime. That got me thinking about resistance and why I was expending so much psychic energy trying to keep myself from doing something I really wanted to do. When my brain throws up that much clutter I try to sit up and pay attention.

So I did what I thought would help me over the hurdle of all that negative energy - called my sister and confessed, " I'm talking myself out of going." And she did what every caring sister would do, told me to go and that if I backed out she would give me a hard time.

So, I went and you know what? It was great. I didn't fall, not even once. I was, at moments, self conscious but I got over it. I let those wheels spin me around and around, let the adrenalin of feeling exposed and maybe a little foolish course through me and had a very good time.

The feelings I associate with skating are joy and an almost crazy sense of self confidence. In the crazy dark patches of my early teen years skating was something I was good at. At the rink things made sense - I knew exactly who I was.

Last night, I think I got a little piece of that back.