Skateboard
Today I skateboarded.
Two months in to quarantine + the past two weeks have felt like the most difficult to deal with. As I fell asleep the other night, I made the mistake of allowing the dangerous thought, “What might I be doing now if there was no quarantine, no pandemic?”
The Golden Rule of quarantine, as I quickly learned after that seemingly innocent passing thought, is to keep yourself from wondering that “What if.” Although quarantine is not easy + it is a but scary to think that no one has really gone through this +, thus, does not quite know how to navigate it. On the flip-side, that means we are truly all in this together. No single person has all the answers (if we’re being honest no one has even one answer) so that means we will all figure things out as one.
So this negative energy that began creeping in + weighing me down. I HAD to shake it. All I’ve been doing, every action I’ve made over the past two months has been to keep my mind + body busy so as not to get upset. This form of denial no doubt allowed emotions to sit, fester + start to stir.
A dormant volcano.
That explains why I texted my friends that other day i simply stated that I felt volatile, like I just might explode. Who else is with me? Who else has felt this heated energy?
So, multiple times today I contemplated putting in a sick day for tomorrow as a mental health day. It does really feel like I need to reset my mind to regain full focus. Never has a mental health day felt more accurate + needed. All the same, I never submitted that request. Another assignment arose. A training continued. The puppy started nibbling my ankles. The puppy needed to go outside. My sister burst into the house talking loudly about something.
5:00 hit. When I looked up again it was 5:15. I closed my laptop. I was going to skateboard.
The last time I got on a skateboard was at least four years ago. That was a very brief stint that lasted about a week. To be honest, whose to say today’s activity won’t be a brief stint as well?
Still, I did. Up + down the long side street that passes by the driveway to my parents’ house. It’s never easy doing something new. As a perfectionist who is extremely afraid of disappointing others + myself, of never being good enough at something, the thought of starting something new can be draining. The thought of writing this post was draining. But I put my right foot on the board. Push off with my left + I rolled! I went all over 2.5 feet but I went + I kept going.
The return of muscle memory from surfing. I could do it. Not great, no skate parks in my near future at all but I realized am still capable of doing things beyond my comfort zone. Little by little. So although I might still feel like I want to cry a when I sit down at my desk (my family’s dining room table) I can also take time to do something more with this time - learn to skateboard, write a blog post when I can. If we take a second to reach beyond our routine we will find stores of energy that are waiting for a chance to do something new + cultivate that. Then the “What if” thought changes to “What can I do next.”
I’ll keep you posted on how this whole skateboarding thing goes. If anyone has any tip, please share! + Let us all know what you’ve been doing to re-energize your mentality.