Recently I found myself to be the proud owner of some in-line skates, but - much to my dismay - few people found my new interest as interesting as I did. One friend kindly informed me that he’d still laugh at me at my funeral if such a hobby was to be the death of me, while another friend’s response went something like this:
Friend: Oh? You’ve got skates? Cool! I used to skate...
Me: Really?!
Friend: Yeah... When I was six.
Me: [...]
The flash-bulb moment that convinced me to buy a pair of skates in the first place occurred shortly after seeing Whip it! with Ellen Page and Drew Barrymore – a movie about roller derby girls. My mother – who has raised and loved me for eighteen blissful years – has come to know how impressionable I am (I really am hesitant to admit such a thing) and was able to tie the movie and my new purchase together:
“No, mom – I have always wanted a pair of skates! It really has nothing to do with that movie we saw last week... I thought you knew me better?! Gosh!”
Now, for the moment we’ve all been waiting for: the First Day of Skating!
Safety first. Elbow pads? Check. Knee pads? Check? Wrist guards? Check. Helmet? Check. With my sports attire on and ready to go, I thought I should look at myself in the mirror, you know, to see how cool I looked... Well, I certainly wasn’t met with a ‘cool’ Ellen-Page-look-alike... Rather, I was met with a tall, dorky figure in a baggy shirt and leggings, with over-emphasised joints and a big head.
My thought process went something like this:
“There is no way am I going to face my complex like this! There are fellow teenagers just up the road... Although... It is during finals – I bet they’re all at school or inside!” with the latter thought left to comfort me, I casually accepted my new found look and I somehow made my way to the front gate and onto the road.
My house (or rather, the house in which I am privileged to live) is situated in the middle of a down-hill that is about 30 meters long. That said, the 15 meters I had to endure for the first time in skates since I was about six proved to be long enough to realise how fast I was capable of going, and so, I decided I would not attempt a downhill if I could avoid it. Rather, I would skate around the complex and at the top of the hill I would admit defeat and take off my skates and walk down until I had learned how to break.
I live in a square-shaped complex and skated around until I reached the top of the hill by the entrance. As I got there, the gate opened and I saw a car that was pumping loud music: “No! Loud music? It must be someone my age! Must. Not. Be. Seen.”
With that thought in mind I turned around and sped down the hill.
Just moments before I had casually glided down the 15 scariest meters of my life and now I was speeding down for the whole 30! I’m quite sure (and this is no hyperbole) I broke the 20km speed-limit in our complex. As I reached the bottom of the hill I realised I was going down a one-way and panicked, so I tried to turn, which proved to be incredibly difficult and thus resulted in me doing an arbitrary maneuver where my knees were bent and I was (for some unknown reason) holding onto the toes of my skates with my head curled into my chest. With little balance and no dignity I found myself crashing into the gutter in the road and looking up to see the loud-music-car stop just a few houses in front of me.
Embarrassed , I pulled myself out of the road and onto the pavement where I sat behind a tree ready to accept my fate, only to find that I was not dead but rather very much alive and perfectly mortified. I never quite understood the term “...I could have died!” until then. I hid behind the tree until the loud-music-car passengers had exited their vehicle and entered their house before I decided to quickly and shamefully skate to my house. Yes, hiding was not a dignified response to my dilemma – but with no dignity left I found I couldn’t care less...
Proverbs 16:18 “Pride goes before destruction, and haughtiness (arrogance) before a fall.” - NLT
Pride comes before a fall... And don't I know it!
