Acquiring a new skill isn't easy. I attempted to take up painting two winters ago, and I cried before every class and then quit. There's nothing worse than being bad, which is a fundamental part of trying something for the first time. I view myself as a generally competent person, and I don't have the fortitude to cope when that belief is challenged.I'm currently working on all of this with my therapist because it's the main reason, aside from being generally depressed, that I don't do anything. I own a chameleon, eat paleo foods, write dumb stuff online, and watch the Bachelor franchise. That's my comfort zone. I'll occasionally exercise, and I recently started an acupuncture practice, but the latter just requires me to lie still and the former is becoming increasingly infrequent.
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A month ago, however, I was struck by a vision of myself wearing some kind of fashionable hat while gliding down the street on a skateboard. I immediately knew that I had to become the person in my mind's eye. Maybe once I did, I wouldn't be as deeply depressed, neurotic, or focused on a high-fat, low-carb diet. I would be a skateboarder, a.k.a cool. But before that, I would have to suffer through the indignity of working at it.Read more: Boiled Eggs with a Side of Breakdown: My Paleo Diary
Step One: Assemble a Crew
There is one rule, though: It's kind of embarrassing to be over the age 14 and learning how to skateboard for the first time.Luckily, my adult boyfriend, Rion, and my adult roommate, Spencer, also decided that they wanted in on skateboarding's transformative powers, so I had a crew to dull the shame of running into a group of teens—they're always in groups—who are better than me at skateboarding.Rion, Spencer, and I walked to our local skate shop as a united front in order to pick out our boards. From the perspective of an adult having a quarter-life crisis, the inside of a skate shop is very scary. There are young people picking out boards confidently. There are relaxed salespeople (all men) in crewneck sweatshirts who "hang back" until you approach them, and you are not going to want to approach them because you're embarrassed.After about 15 minutes of staring at the selection of standard decks, which were all confusingly different sizes but only by centimeters, Spencer finally asked for help: "Hey, so, we're adults and we want to start skateboarding. What do we do?"
Step Two: Get a Board
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The clerk did not even smile at my roommate's attempt at humor. It's not that he was unfriendly—it was more like he probably hears this inquiry at least once a week from neo-yuppies who had shelved their vague desire to "be an artist" and suddenly realized they've become boring. The clerk explained that the board sizes don't really matter because we're likely not doing any advanced tricks (roasted) so we decided to choose decks based on aesthetics. I got one that had "Lizard King" written as if it was spray-painted in lime green caps amid a purple, sparkling background as an homage to my chameleon, Drake. With the trucks, wheels, and grip tape—the existence and names of which I learned that day—it cost $150. A small price to pay, I thought, for my awesome new life.I would later learn that "Lizard King" is the name of a current skater, and the board I picked was "his" board. For a second I felt like a poser, and like I should immediately start working to become Lizard King's biggest fan, but I eventually let that go. I made up my mind to reclaim the name for actual lizards, and even when a friend mentioned to me that my board-sake recently appeared on VICELAND's skate-competition show King of the Road and pooped into a shoe, I remained unfazed. Rion got a board that had drawings of lizards on it, and Spencer declined to get a board because he got cold feet and started to fear that he would rapidly lose interest in skating.
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Step Three: Get On the Board
Whenever I got bored with that, and a little jealous of the boys' fun, I would attempt an ollie. I'm happy to report that within a few days I achieved what I'm calling "a cute baby ollie," in which I actually got a wisp of air beneath my back wheel! I was starting to feel really good about my new life as skater.
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Step Four: Appropriate Skate Fashion
Step Five: Make Your Debut at the Skatepark
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I also related to the razor scooter kids because I did not feel comfortable participating in the action at the skatepark. It was insane. The men and boys were zooming around each other in a chaotic order that seemed determined before I got there and now could not be altered. I couldn't figure out how I would get in there. It was very overwhelming, and my social anxiety was starting to kick in. Additionally, I was, and still am, bad at skateboarding, and I didn't feel like I had enough room to fall or enough time to stand hesitantly before attempting to skate down a ramp for the first time. It was just too much. I went home.Further back, there was clique of middle schoolers clinging to their razor scooters, who seemed equally as scared as I was.
Step Six: Make Your Debut at the Skatepark in the Early Morning to Avoid Teens
I quickly realized that the falls I had been experiencing while skating on the street were nothing compared to the spills one takes at the park. While attempting to skate up a softly sloped, three-foot quarter pipe, I skidded off my board and smashed my elbow. Later I banged up my hip and my knee doing something similar. My damn helmet didn't do a thing, except make me look bad. I needed padding all over my body.I had I come in with a plan to drop in on a big daddy quarter pipe, and end this article on a note of triumph, but when I stood at the top of one I became fairly certain I would die if I tried it. I clearly was not ready: I really hadn't even mastered turning around yet. Skateboarding—as in actually putting all the footwork together to get from a point A to a point B, where along the way are rails and ramps and turns—is hard. As I looked out from my vantage point on the ramp, I felt sore and ridiculous. But if a grown man named Lizard King pooping into a shoe is any indication, anyone who wants to skateboard will have to get used to that feeling.