Roller Skates
The carpet is black, with little figures of lightning bolts, roller skates, the outline of hearts, and random geometric shapes in an assortment of different colors of neon thread. Two disco balls spin at opposite ends of the rink, separated by a dozen other globe lights that cycle from pink to red to orange to yellow to green to blue to purple on an endless loop.
The smell of mediocre pizza has probably worked its way permanently into the walls. Music from a handful of arcade games competes to lure guests over, drowned out by the pop coming from the skating rink. For a moment I can’t tell if it's 1997 or 2025.
Then my eight-year-old daughter gives me the nod that it’s time to get out on the rink and we push out for another lap.
Where did almost 30 years go? The thing is, when I drove my daughter to the birthday party at the local skating rink, I had every intention of putting on some soundcanceling headphones and getting some progress on the audiobook I’ve been listening to. That or bringing my laptop in and hammering out a little work. So when she asked me if I was going to skate with her my first answer was: I’m not sure, sweetie.
It was a lie. I was pretty nearly sure that she would have more fun without me and that I could use the time “productively.” I’ve been noticing this for some time now, but there is a part of me that refuses to let me stay in the present moment. Oh, I am familiar with anxiety and with hypervigilance and this isn’t quite that. Those oftentimes present as a way of anticipating some threat in the near future… a way of peering around the next several corners to keep ourselves safe.
This part of me seems more focused on momentum. I recently explained it as the sensation of knowing that I’ve got a 100 mile race to do, and rather than wait for the starting gun at 6 am tomorrow I’m going to go ahead and get started on those miles now. There’s work to be done, so let’s get to it.
You probably hear how this isn’t all bad, and that’s important. On the one hand this part helps me to be a good provider, to be proactive, to use my time wisely. Yet on the other hand, the usefulness of this part is also the hook that lets it stick into my jaw the way a dry fly hooks an aggressive brown trout.
Roller skating with my daughter brought me back to actually living my life, not just making sure there is future work and taxes paid and food on the table. All important things, but not the moments that I will hold onto in the years to come. It makes me think of the second and fifth most common regrets of the dying: I wish I hadn’t worked so much and I wish I had let myself be happier.
Something that Bill Lokey told me once was that “the first step towards happiness is being willing to cease our loyalty to our unhappiness.” So, I risked a pair of broken wrists (it turns out the floor has gotten further away over these past 30 years… and my bones are less durable) and set the part of me that is obsessed with the never-ending endurance race. What did I get in exchange? My daughter's laughter and smile and twinkling eyes with the lights of the disco ball.
In other words: everything.
