"When You Fall, You Just Get Back Up"

Anyone following this blog knows that I have a whole bunch of races I’m training for: the NYC Half Marathon in March, the MORE/Fitness Half Marathon in April, three triathlons in May and June, the New York City Aquaphor Triathlon in July, and a bunch of other small races I need to do to qualify for the 2014 NYC Marathon.  But today’s blog is not about swimming, biking or running.  This time I want to talk about ice skating.

A million years ago when I was sophomore at McGill University in Montreal, I was dead asleep late one Saturday morning, trying to negate whatever damage a sophomore in undergrad inflicts on themselves on a Friday night in a city where the drinking age is 18, when I was suddenly pounced upon by my best friend, Heather.  “Get up,” she said.  “My hockey team needs a new goalie.  You’re it.  We have a game tonight.”  I reminded Heather that I could barely skate, and hadn’t done it for years.  Her reply, “then you really have to get up.  We have a lot of work to do.”  That day, not only did I learn the importance of locking my dorm room door so I couldn’t get pounced on while I was asleep and hungover, but Heather also taught me to skate well enough to stand in a goal and stop a very hard puck from going into the net at break-neck speed by throwing my own body in front of it.  That first game, my skating was so bad that Heather – who grew up in Canada and New Hampshire and therefore came out of the womb with hockey skates on her feet – had to literally come and get me between each period and guide me over to the opposite net.  I think she even had to turn me around so I’d be facing the right way.

Eventually I got a bit better (read: I could skate from one end of the rink to the other on my own), and actually started to enjoy playing hockey.  That is, I liked it until my senior year.  Heather, who was a year ahead of me, had graduated but I was still playing for the same team.  One of my defenders was another good friend, Priscilla, who was as fast as lightening and had great puck handling skills – but couldn’t stop unless there was a wall to crash into.  One game in my very last semester at McGill we were leading 9 – 1 (really, the other team sucked) when the other team had the puck and was trying to make a break away.  Priscilla took off after them, and when the other player got close, she shot the puck at me.  I was able to stop it, but about half a second later, Priscilla ( who remember was as fast as lightening but couldn’t stop) crashed right into me.  I went flying over her and landed hard on my left side, managing to dislocate my shoulder and tear all the ligaments and rotator cuff in it at the same time.  My love for and experience with hockey and ice skating ended that night.

Now, why am I bringing up this story a million years later?  Have I joined a women’s 40+ hockey league (er, I mean 39++++…)?  No, of course not.  I’m not that insane.  But, what I did do is have children.  And one of those children, Olivia, was off from school this past week.  And she was bored on Friday.  And wanted something to do.  And in a moment of either momentary insanity or temporary amnesia, I offered to take her ice skating in Bryant Park.  Unfortunately, my daughter jumped at the chance, and the next thing I knew we were headed into the City to go skating.

After I finished lacing up our rented skates, Olivia and I walked out to the rink. I could tell Liv was nervous.  She had only ever skated once before.  So, I tried to pretend that this was no big deal.  In my own head, I was thinking “it’ll be like riding a bicycle (minus the pedals, tires, and pavement that’s not icy).  I’ll remember how to do this and we’ll be fine.”  I stepped out onto the ice first, and after my moment of panic thinking “I’m standing on ICE with little knives on the bottom of my feet.  Why is this fun???”, I turned to help Olivia out and saw the scared look on her face.  I know how hard it can be when you let your fears run your life and stop you from doing things you really wish you could do.  I didn’t want my own daughter to know that.  So I just smiled, held out my hand for her and said, “Liv, you got this.”  She nodded, took a very serious breath for an 8 year old child, grabbed my hand and came out onto the rink with me.

It took us a few minutes to figure out how to get going.  For the first lap, I held the wall with one hand and Olivia with the other and kind of just pulled her along.  She was happy and everything was fine – until we reached the opposite end of the rink.  I looked up and saw that about 5 feet from the end, the wall was cordoned off by a bunch of blue pylons, meaning that we were going to have to use our own skill and power to get across the short side of the rink.  The only thought in my head was, “We’re screwed,” but I chose to make it a little more positive and G-rated when I turned to my daughter and said, “We’re going to have to skate across this on our own.”  Again, Olivia looked scared, but then I watched her.  She took one deep breath, then another.  Then, she looked at me and said, “We got this, Mom.”

We struggled, but we managed to get across.  Once we had reattached ourselves to the wall again, Olivia smiled with her whole head and yelled out, “We did it!  That was so cool!”  Olivia and I took several more laps around.  After a few laps, I finally did get the hang of skating again and let go of the wall and just held Olivia’s hand and guided her.  Liv fell twice (once was my fault.  I tried to get us around a guy who skated even worse than us, and he started to fall so I veered and Liv lost her balance).  Every time we got to the spot where we had to go on our own, Olivia took her deep breath, told me she was ready and we made our way across.

When we were done, we exited the ice and sat down together for a bit.  Olivia was beaming, clearly having enjoyed the challenge and the experience.  I turned to her and said, “You did great!”  Olivia smiled and said, “It was scary, but the best part of doing something scary is just doing it.”  After I let that sink in, I said, “Sorry that you fell a couple of times.”  Olivia’s reply, “It’s no big deal, Mom.  When you fall, you just get back up.”

As I helped Olivia out of her skates, I thought about what she said.  We all fall.  Some of us fall a lot.  Sometimes it even hurts, either physically or otherwise.  But all you can do is just get back up, because the best part of a challenge is overcoming it.  And I needed an 8 year old to teach me that.  Duh.

A little while later, Olivia and I were back on our train to the suburbs.  I had just dozed off (trust me, Olivia is NOT boring company.  It’s just that my body takes a nap on that afternoon train every work day and just went into autopilot), when Olivia tapped my arm.  I looked down at her and she said, “That was so much fun.  Can we go skating again sometime?”  I had only one answer for her: “Absolutely.”