I tell myself it’s too hot to practice skating at the netball court after work. And so lately I’ve been doing it in the lounge room instead, listening to Halsey’s Without Me on repeat while I practice on my banana, this rollerskating move I’ve been obsessing on the moment I saw a skater do it on Instagram. It looked easy enough.

Jeff was right. Skating is more a mental process than getting my moves right. My greatest enemy is myself. Up here, where my fears live. Where my fear of falling seems just as real as my fear of failure.

I’m doing shadow work at the moment. I have made the conscious decision to use skating as one of my exercises to, I don’t know, purge out the demons inside me to give them a hug. So now I’m on my Moxis almost every day even if it’s just for 30 minutes or so. Even if all I do is just wear it for the sake of putting it on and patting myself on the back for simply “showing up.”

That’s me facing my fears right there. Nothing grand, really. But, yeah.

This was me 2 years ago when I went in for skating lessons at the rink. Progress-wise, I’m not much better than I was before but then again, I couldn’t do the moonwalk on my skates like I could now so I guess that’s saying a lot.

*Raven at 2 years old