Life as a Second-Chance Ice Skater

(You can find Part One here .) So we’ve already established that I left the Lake Placid Adult Skating Weekend (LPASW herein) with a renewed love of the sport and a strong sense of community. But what about, y'know… the stuff I actually paid for? The opportunity to skate in such a storied rink was worth the price of admission alone. Getting to roam the labyrinthine behind-the-scenes corridors of an Olympic arena and freely pass through “Athletes Only” doors made me absolutely giddy. Trundling my middling-skater ass across an icy surface that was loaded with reminders of the victories and epic moments and soaring emotions it hosted was humbling in a way that bordered on deferent. And getting to skate more than five hours a day (which is more ice time than I get in some weeks)? Ungh, I could do that every day and it still wouldn’t be enough! Lemme tell you how much it hurt to put Lake Placid in the rearview. Escaping the mundane day-to-day of adult life and just skating my hea...

Let's not be coy: My first Lake Placid Adult Skating Weekend just ended and I'm already counting down 'til next year's. I am absolutely, utterly gobsmacked by how much I enjoyed the entire experience. I'm gonna recap this in two posts: This first one is going to be all about the feels, and the next will be more about the experience itself and the more actionable takeaways I got from it. I came away from the weekend not only feeling like part of an actual community but also having learned so freaking much, which I can't wait to apply to my skating now that it's all had a chance to sink in; both of those are distinct reactions that, to me, merit individual attention. I think part of why I'm so floored by how much I enjoyed going to an adult skating camp is that, honestly, I was expecting to hold myself back from getting the most out of it. I was afraid I wouldn't mesh with anyone or that I'd default to introvert isolation. I worried that I'...

The warm months are my home. Flip-flop weather is my time to thrive. My daily commute is vastly improved when I can haul ass down the highway with the volume up and windows down. But most of all, it means that the heavy clouds of my seasonal depression finally abate… and give way to the regular ol’ garden-variety blaaaaahs. To be fair, skating has kept the worst of my SAD and general malaise at bay, and for that I am thankful beyond words. Even in my most frustrated, most hopeless moments on the ice, I have a goal to fight for and progress I want to make. Feeling numb because you’ve just spent two hours skating around a frozen surface in a chilly rink is decidedly preferable to feeling numb because your brain is a wicked, chemically confused thing, and having goals gives tomorrow a built-in purpose worth sticking around for. If I must be my own worst enemy, I’ll at least use that impulse to undermine my attempts to undermine my own success. But that doesn’t make being beset on all ...