I felt restless today. At about 2:30 PM, I decided to go rollerblading at the local skating rink. So I grabbed my luggage and off I went.

You might think it’s a bit strange to go to a general skating session by yourself but I used to do this every week for about a year. Every Sunday afternoon, I would hop onto the rink and bop to some good and bad music. I haven’t skated for about ten months but was pleased that I was able to get back into the rhythm after a few minutes.

I learned how to ski this year so for the first time, I was able to do some basic slalom turns on blades. Learning to parallel ski removed the mental block I had about parallel turns in blading.

I started off grooving subtly with the music, a little bit of hand action here, a foot lift there… After a while, though, I didn’t care and my arms were flailing all over the place, I was singing and jumping. Someone came up to me and asked if I was a break dancer! I was so happy. I stuck my arms out and pretended I was flying.

There were some figure skaters on the floor doing jumping spins, backwards skating and partner skating. It was very cool. During the fask skating song, though, I was able to zoom past those fancy figure skaters using my limited training in speed skating (I trained for about eight months about three years ago). The little kids stuck their hands over the barrier and I gave them high fives as I flew by.

Afterward, I talked to the figure skaters. They were nice and encouraging. “We haven’t seen you here before! Come back again!” they said.

I fell over once. I should have worn the elbow pads in addition to my wrist guards.

I had forgotten how fun skating is. Why did I stop? I got busy, I suppose — and got friends! I guess it’s nice to have a hobby that you can enjoy without devoting huge chunks of your life to it.