Concrete is your Friend

Fear is a funny thing. Not funny "ha ha", funny in that it can change everything. It can make the easy hard; the simple complicated; the natural foreign and obtuse. Fear ( I am beginning to understand) had taken up house in me. When the hell did that happen?

I am getting ahead of myself a little.
Let me go back a bit.

When my skate swag arrived, I unpacked it in an eager yet precise way; each item was held, or should I say caressed;  carefully laid out and opened. No plastic was ripped with teeth, no cardboard torn with excited fingers. Once each item was unwrapped, I reveled in the smell of plastic off-gassing and the oily aroma of new leather. I promptly boiled water for my mouth guard , sucked  the warm polymer into a tight tooth hug. And sat, with my legs splayed out , regarding my RD booty with awe and trepidation. I did not lace up straight away. Instead I ran my fingers over leather stitching and nylon trucks. I envisioned the skates beaten and worn into the comfort of a second skin, but I did not put them on.
    It took 2 days to pluck up the courage to do that.
Finally, I had enough of them, sitting like movie props against the wall in my room.
I do believe I actually spoke outloud to myself "RIGHTO THEN" or something along those lines. Placed my hands on my hips and stared down at those matte leather beauties and exhaled (as you do in such moment) Then I began velcroing bits onto my body
Knee pads
Elbow pads
Wrist pads
Take wrist pads off as it's impossible to negotiate the skates with them on
Skates, Laces.
Wrist Pads.
Helmet
(I left my mouth guard out, I thought that would be overkill for my first outing)

I am sitting on my bed, it's a high bed, an old Victorian cast iron number. It creaks as I roll the skates back an forth on the tiled floor, swinging my legs. They are fucking fast; faster that Christine Bonds; faster than 1992 era RollerBlades.
What the hell am I doing?!
I stand up and feel fear leap into my belly and claw at it. My feet are hijacked and no longer reliable. Immediately I sit back on my bed and undo my chin strap.
I sigh, and it feels like I am deflating.
For a moment there is an inner calamity. I want to be a Roller Derby Girl, but in those few seconds of rolling my feet back and forth, I also realised just how much work I had ahead of me.
...I took the skates off.

It took another day of those skates sitting there for me to try again. This time I didn't swing my legs from the bed to the tiles, I stood straight up and gingerly made my way along the edge of the bed to the hall outside my room. Bent over like an old lady, staring at the ground 4 inches infront of my skates... Not the best form I know.
I made it to the carport, smooth concrete awaited me there, and I quickly introduced it to my rump. Hitting the ground with a deft thud and groan. I got up onto my hands and knees negotiating a wobbly ascent back onto my wheels, sending myself on a comical over correction that landed me back onto my rear and then spread eagled looking up at the garage rafters.
This scene replayed itself over the next few minutes. I made it back to my room and took the skates off, feeling beaten and way out of my comfort zone. But as I unlaced my boots and rubbed my sore parts, I realised that I had learned my first valuable lesson...The fear of falling, is worse than falling itself.

So with this in mind the very next day, after kitting up and making my way back to the garage, I began my practise by throwing myself on the ground. I splayed, twisted, skidded, flopped, rolled and scrapped myself about on that garage floor until the feeling of hitting hard concrete was silly and fun. When I finally stopped, and stood up on my 8 wheels, the trepidation of falling, that barbed fear, had diminished, not gone, I think that would be asking too much. Instead it had faded, from a blood red dread, to a rosey pink hue.

It was a strange kind of genius.

I had 5 days until Fresh Meat intake.