Years ago, skating as a teenager, I discovered the art of rollerblading for recreation and exercise. I remember purchasing my first pair of roller blades with saved up money from my paper routes. I wore the first set of wheels down to the bearings. The frames became so beat up that Play-It-Again Sports scrapped them for me. I replaced that pair with a better design. I still have these.

Up until I married, those blades rolled places. Then, tragedy occurred and I hadn’t touched them since, that is until Sunday, July 20th, 2014. A week or two before this I saw someone flying down my street on roller blades. That got me thinking, why don’t I blade anymore? I couldn’t give myself a good response; I had given up. Another time in the garage, I saw my blades poking from a storage can.This must have been a sign.

I dusted them off and located my protective gear after all, a writer doesn’t need a broken wrist. A day or two later, I suited up and started out slowly, gaining my balance on two legs and wheels. Then it was like I had never stopped rollerblading (except for remembering how to navigate curbs. I headed to the quiet park with paved walk ways and an adjoining school parking lot. At first, I straight up skated working my way to downhill squatting and attempting turns. Turns were easy to remember, but harder to do especially backwards. As I practiced and nearly fell on my butt, I had a thought I’ll finish with.

“Sometimes you have to go backwards to move forward. Sometimes you need to fall in order to succeed”.-K.E.Voss