I wrote a personal narrative in my english class this year about college and it started like this;
"I have spent at least 8,268 hours of my life in a skating rink."
Actually, this is a lie. Over the past 12 years, I have spent way more time in skating rink than this. I did the bare minimum numbers for this math. And the crazy thing is, I'm really going to miss it.
I started skating after my failed attempt at gymnastics. I actually hated skating at first too, but it wasn't because of the actual skating. I hated the dumb helmet I had to wear. It was this huge, ugly, black hockey helmet that would pinch me when I put it on. Ew. Just thinking about it makes me cringe. In my first skating show I was actually in a Pocahontas group program! This blog is slowly turning into six degrees of separationg the Disney version...Anyway, I loved skating from the first time I got on the ice. I remember staying up for hours the day before my next skating lesson wondering what I would learn next. I loved the dresses, I loved getting my makeup and hair done, I loved my programs, I just loved everything about the sport.
I do both solo and synchro skating. Synchronized skating is team skating...I always describe it to people that don't know what it is by saying, "It's like synchronized swimming on ice, but it's way better". I've been doing synchro since I was about seven. I've been on so many different teams. One year I was actually on three different teams at the same time...which was interesting.
Skating has led to many great things for me. Not only is it fun, but I have made so many good friends that I would've never met if it wasn't for skating. This is probably what I'm going to miss the most about it. I'm going to miss all the girls I skate with, my coach, all the little kids I have helped coach, and everyone on the other teams. It's crazy, but I'm also going to miss my early morning practices that feel like you're waking up at the crack of dawn. Probably one of the worst and best feelings is being so exhausted and getting on that ice bright and early to work. I'm probably not going to miss the bumps and bruises that I'm always showing off, but I'm pretty sure I've hit those same spots so many times that I will permanently have purple bruises on my legs.
There were many times that I almost thought of quitting skating, especially when my grandmother died. She was my biggest fan, and that April when we found out she had lung cancer to that January when she passed away was the hardest time of my life. She would always be at my skating competition down the Cape, and at that competition I lost it. We had found out the week before my competition what her diagnosis was and literally, I was in my warm up bawling my eyes out because I just wanted to do the best program I had ever done for her. When she died in January, I had to leave for my competition in Lake Placid a day after her funeral. There was one moment where I just wanted to give up and not go. I was an emotional wreck for 10 months, so I wasn't ready for this really important competition. But, I knew that she would've slapped me over the head. She knew how important skating was to me, and she would've never wanted me to stop because of her. So that day when I competed I knew that she was in the stands of the 1980 olympic rink cheering me on, and I know that at every competition she is there cheering me on.
Didn't mean to get all sentimental folks :) well in conclusion, I know that I will always have a special place in my heart for skating. It's never been that nice to me, if you think about how many bumps and bruises and injuries it's given me. But I know that when I'm thirty and my knees are already giving out because of so much skating, I will still love it. It will always be apart of my life, no matter where my life takes me. I'll always remember the feeling of getting on that ice. And when I get to Orlando, I'm finding the closest rink and going skating.
"Do you remember why you skate, or has it been too long? Is it because you’ve worked so hard to get where you are, or because you love to be part of this team? Is it because you don’t want to let anyone down, including yourself? Somewhere behind the athlete you’ve become, the hours of practice, the teammates who believed in you, and the fans who cheered for you, is the little girl who put on her first pair of skates—who fell in love with the sport, and never looked back.
Skate for her."
