When I was young, a neighbourhood kid passed me down a pair of her old roller skates. She was a fair bit older than me, and I assume she was a pretty good skater because the skates didn’t have stoppers. (The big rubber things you press down at the front of your feet to slow your speed or stop.)
This is a pair of traditional roller skates with stoppers. Image copyright Impala Skates.
I must have been six or seven, and it was love at first sight for me. I would stuff socks at the end of those skates, strap them on tightly and skate up and down the length of our back patio again and again. After a while, my brother took an interest in my interest and started to teach me some basics. He was a great skater and a patient and kind teacher. I’ll never forget the many things he took the time to teach me as a child.
We started visiting the roller skating rink, and before long, I was zooming around backwards and picking up speed. Those skates fit me better, too. Skating became a source of great joy and confidence for me. Confidence was something that had been in short supply in the earlier years of my life after a near-fatal drowning at age four.
I would spend as much time at the roller skating rink as Mum permitted me to, sometimes doing double sessions during the school holidays—8 hours of skating!
I became an excellent skater. And I’m not talking about figure skating; I’m talking about pure speed. I was one of the fastest skaters at my rink (Skaters Paradise, Southport) and the fastest girl. During the “speed skate”, many eyes were on me as I lapped other skaters whilst skating backwards, always finishing with an impressive, screeching skid to stop at the end.
Around the time I was happily skating my life away, and while I was still in primary school, my mum asked me if I wanted to join the Brownies. For those who don’t know, the Brownies were a group of girls who learn and have adventures together. They precede the Girl Guides. Before you can even become a Brownie, you need to be a tweenie, subjected to sitting under a giant metal mushroom during meetings and doing your time before you’re permitted the honour of becoming a Brownie.
Wow! The internet really delivered when I found this. I hadn’t thought about the Tweenie mushroom in a long, long time until this week.
Personally, I thought it was all a bunch of bullshit. Even at that age, I was a rebel and quite opposed to authority. However, my very best friend in the whole world was a Brownie, and I knew it was a big deal for Mum to save up the money for me to do an extra curriculum, so I went ahead with it.
To my complete delight, not long into my Tweenie journey, there was an opportunity to earn a badge doing something I was damn confident in – roller skating!
(Badges were earned for all sorts of feats, although I can’t list them because my Tweenie/ Brownie journey came to an abrupt end not long after it began. Stay tuned to know why!)
Also found on the internet – Brownie badges! Once obtained, they are proudly stitched onto your signature brown dress to display your prowess as a Brownie.
At last, the day dawned, and we Brownies and Tweenies excitedly turned up with signed permission slips, ready to undertake our skating tests. I stood out somewhat with my beaten-up skate bag and a pair of stopper-less speed skates, the only girl with her own skates, period.
I literally still have my old skate bag! It’s so old that it’s retro cool again.
Now, each Brownie badge has strict criteria that must be met before it is awarded. At the roller skating rink, the Brownie leaders dutifully ticked off skills for each girl on their clipboards. Meanwhile, I was just thrilled that our small group had the entire skating rink to ourselves. I was able to really tear it up without scores of beginner skaters tripping over everywhere.
I skated my little heart out that day. I was filled with joy to be doing something that I was genuinely good at—the best at in this group. I was going to get my first badge. I was going to become a Brownie and graduate from sitting under that fucking mushroom. Life was good …
Until the time came to announce the recipients of the Brownie skating badge, and my name wasn’t called.
I couldn’t believe it. I was the best skater there. I had questions, and I asked them. And do you want to know why I didn’t receive my skating badge?
One of the criteria for the badge was the ability to come to a complete stop … USING A STOPPER.
A stopper that I didn’t have.
Unfortunately, coming to a complete stop using an impressive skid was not listed on the Brownie skating badge criteria, so my future as a Brownie abruptly died.
(I quit. I resolutely refused to go back on principle. And you know what? It still stings.)
This childhood memory is almost as clear to me today as it was 30 years ago. I can still remember swallowing down my fury. I still remember feeling the biting pain of an injustice done to me.
But I did swallow that fury. I did bury that pain. After all, who really cares about the pain and opinions of a “tween” girl? That pain, along with the pain of countless other childhood incidents, settled into my body to lie dormant until something was stirred up in me.
And this week, something was.
Fortunately, that Brownie badge incident did not cause me to stop skating. Skating has continued to be a source of great joy and confidence.
It’s how I met my best friend in high school. (She saw me at the skating rink tearing it up and thought I must be cool, haha.) It helped me to make friends and connections when I lived in Cairns, some of whom I still talk to today. It impressed my firstborn nephew tremendously, and it helped me to remember myself in those scary months after having my first baby amidst a pandemic.
Here’s a throwback – skating in Cairns around 2006/2007.
Skating in 2020. Look at baby Makia.
I’ve recently started attending a new skating club on the Gold Coast called Roller Fit. Roller Fit is held weekly in a school assembly; there aren’t many roller skating rinks around anymore. We learn tricks, socialise, and do cringy dances on wheels. It’s the best thing ever.
Roller Fit selfie, 2024.
This week was my fourth class; they’re new to the Gold Coast or I’m sure I would have been going earlier.
Our instructor asked the class if we would prefer to learn low-down moves or work on jumps. Since I was the only one who wanted to do jumps, it was low-down moves.
I find the low-down moves challenging, mainly because my hamstrings and glutes are not flexible. Speed skates are also flat and low. They rest low on your ankle, like a sneaker, flush with your foot.
Speed skates look and feel very different to the traditional skates pictured above.
Most skates people wear these days have a higher boot with a decent lift under the ankle and a stopper. (Fucking stoppers!)
These might seem like unimportant details, but actually, that little heel lift radically affects how your weight is distributed and helps you balance when you’re down low doing tricks. I already knew this, so I asked our instructor if I could borrow some of the hire skates to see what I could do in them.
For the first time in more than 35 years, I put on a pair of regular skates, and I’m not lying when I tell you that I found the experience extremely confronting. To go from a high level of skill and mastery in my own skates to feeling like a beginner in the borrowed skates was an uncomfortable feeling.
And I soon realised that the ankle lift wouldn’t get me down low either. My hamstrings were really too tight.
I noticed my internal dialogue starting up. My inner critic started whispering that I didn’t belong there. That I was an outsider and always would be. I skated around awkwardly while rank beginners did tricks I couldn’t, and I felt … something.
That something was not something I wanted to feel, that’s for sure. I quickly packed up and left the session, arriving home after the kids were asleep and spending an hour sitting downstairs in the car doom scrolling on Instagram.
I hopped into bed, picked up my iPad and lost myself in a book.
And when I woke up in the morning, there was a lingering disquiet in my space. I knew that I was triggered. I do not indulge in spending that long on Instagram in the car, or ever really. It doesn’t make me feel good. I know this. So, what was I trying to avoid?
I allowed myself a moment to review the evening and acknowledge what had happened. And I quickly decided to connect with my husband and share my vulnerability with him. That I felt I wasn’t good enough. That I felt I didn’t belong.
Our conversation quickly turned to his own stories about worthiness, and I immediately sensed how important it is to share these stories. My breakthrough became his breakthrough. He was able to very viscerally link his early childhood let-downs with his own unconscious stories about himself. In Zimbabwe, the culture is brutal, but that’s his story to tell.
After that conversation with Dreamboat, I felt complete with what had happened during my skating class. I didn’t feel the need to dwell on it. I didn’t feel like I had stifled it down or avoided it again. Instead, I felt proud that I had recognised the unhealthy behaviour (the scrolling), had acknowledged that something painful had come up for me and allowed myself to “go there”, and I had used one of my favourite tools to process it – sharing it with someone I love and trust.
Behind that pride was a deep, deep gratitude for the time I have spent on myself this past year. My Awareness Journal practice, in particular, has given me the capacity to feel safe in my body no matter what comes up. Although I got triggered and disassociated for a few hours, I was able to quickly come back from it and have a beautiful moment of vulnerability with my husband—a vulnerability that gave him the space to reciprocate.
There’s a misconception in our society that change needs to be big! That true transformation is on the other side of cataclysmic events or breakdowns. That we can go from being the way we are to a new, shinier version once an imaginary stake has been put in the ground.
This might be the case for some people. But is has not been my experience. In my experience, change has come from an uncompromising CURIOSITY and kindness with myself. From a deep knowing of myself and my patterns of avoidance and self-sabotage.
Lauren five years ago might have quit that class and spent weeks or months stuck in a shame/ victim loop. Lauren of 2024 lost an hour to Instagram, had a beautiful conversation, and is looking forward to trying those hire skates again and being a beginner skater. This is a humbling premise.
So, with the spark of creativity and a desire to express that often accompanies an upcoming full moon, I decided to share that story with you. Maybe there’s something in there for you, too. Or perhaps the lesson is only that vulnerability heals.
We can’t control what happened to us as children. But we can examine the stories and beliefs that we formed during those formative years and say, “I don’t choose you anymore.” Do that enough times, and change will come.
I love you.
**Originally published to my email database on the 15th of August, 2024**
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