roller rink

An actual conversation I had with my chiropractor in 2005 after she looked over my x-rays:

DR. PORTER: Were you a skater when you were younger? Ice skating or roller skating?
NORA: I used to ice skate every winter.
DR. PORTER: Have you ever broken your tailbone?
NORA: No.
DR. PORTER: Well, you're showing some trauma to your tailbone that indicates more than one previous tailbone fractures.
NORA: That's weird.
DR. PORTER: It can be easy for some people to break their tailbone and never know it. Did you ever fall directly on your butt?
NORA: [laugh] Yes.
DR. PORTER: That's probably what did it. Like, two or three times.

So imagine the sweat that gathered on my forehead and in my armpits when my friend asked me to go roller skating with him.

I graduated from high school with Matt, but aside from running into him a few times in the past nine years, I hadn't spent much time with him since algebra class senior year. We've been friends on MySpace and Facebook for a few years now and our pretty regular "We should get together soon!" exchanges after I moved back to Maine last year finally got to the point where we were both meant business. But roller skating? Errr....

I hadn't roller skated since I was 12. It was January of 1994 and I was on a date with my sixth-grade boyfriend that a few of my girlfriends tagged along to. I remember it well, and I know I fell that night.

But I made myself do it, because it's been raining a lot and I was desperate for something new, and even though it was completely outside of my comfort zone I wanted to beat my anxieties into submission with a nail-studded stick. What better way than roller skating?

Dudes, I am SO GLAD I went! Yeah, I was scared and shaky at first, and roller skating is not as easy to me as ice skating, but I did it, and I loved it, and I'm going to start making it a regular thing. THANK GOODNESS Matt asked me to go!

I was really surprised and impressed by the other people skating- there were men and women in their 50s and up who glided so effortlessly on those little wheels, their bodies moving smoothly in the rink like they were weightless. It was beautiful, really.

It'll be nice to have something outside of the house that is not related to errands that I can do on my own, and judging by the ache in my legs for the two days following skating night, it seems to be a pretty good exercise.

Another bonus: with all the butt clenching I do on skates, I am hoping that within a few months time I'll have the firm and perky bum I've been half-heartedly attempting to sculpt at home.