Life as a Second-Chance Ice Skater

My adult-skater journey is officially two years old today, and I still can't believe I finally returned to the ice 16 years after a sprained ankle had me bidding a very grateful adieu to a sport I didn’t like that much and wasn’t very good at in the first place. It has been one humbling, heartening adventure filled with seemingly insurmountable challenges and positively addicting rewards that I am so lucky to call mine. I have learned so much about myself--including how to be a better version of me--because of this sport. I have made so many new friends because of it, both IRL and through digital communities, and the incredible, tireless support I’ve gotten from my skating sisters is only matched by the friends who’ve both uncomplainingly revised plans to accommodate the song of my people (“I caaaaan’t, because skating”) and who do things like veritably bombard me with so much love the day I passed my first test. I'm so thankful that so many amazing people want to come along ...

I didn’t start feeling like I’ve packed 30some years of neglect, abuse, bad habits, and general existence into my body until I started skating. The screaming thighs, the constellation of bruises, the creaky ankles, the tenderized everything: My first few months back on the ice were an exercise in wondering what parts of my aging body were going to scream out for individual recognition next as muscles I hadn’t pushed to their limit in ages were suddenly submitting to moves they (and I) struggled to remember. I still feel the lingering burn of crossover drills for a day or two now but it’s nothing like the strain of my entire body reminding me that I am not a teenager anymore in those early days of getting my ice legs back. Now, I skate three days a week and I have to take a pretty wicked fall to feel as brutalized as I did a year ago. But even when I wake up with all the pops and groans I have welcomed into my adult life, whether they’re from falling on both of my knees or doing a few...

Once upon a time, I had a blog dedicated to two of my favorite things: eating and reading. I was a side-gig book reviewer at the time with a full-time job that afforded me enough opportunities to read on company time that I was no stranger to starting and finishing a book in the same day. I also hated that particular job, so the full-tilt bookworm escapism was as necessary as it was appreciated. And then, like most things I throw myself at with my entire, reckless being, I burned through that honeymoon sheen of novelty: Being a book reviewer and getting paid to both read and write about books is fantastic, until you start trudging through novels you don’t enjoy and writing about them on deadlines that you can’t keep up with. I also changed jobs, this time taking on a much more demanding position that eviscerated my free time—and with it, my desire to read and write. It was the effective end of that particular side hustle and its corollary blog. Flash forward to January 2017. Wai...