Change

It didn't feel right.

Blades on the ice and skates laced tight around my ankles, I still didn't feel the stability that I once did. Was it really a surprise though? You can't expect to come back to a sport after two years of inactivity and expect to be able to have the same comfort and fluidity as you did before.

Eight years, countless lessons and sessions and early mornings and practices, down the drain.

Gliding around the ice, pushing myself harder, attempting to get the feeling back. That feeling of flying, flying but feeling so secure at the same time. Knowing that you won't fall because you're used to this feeling of flying, used to it but the novelty doesn't go away. All the same, there's a tempting danger about it. Wind in your hair and sharp blades piercing the ice, pushing and gliding and speeding away from anything holding you back. Thoughts and bottled up emotion are freed in this form of expression, thought no longer exists except in a singular pathway: what I want to do and how I am going to do it. Simple. Simple and free.

That’s how it used to feel, not how it feels now. Shaky and unstable, faking the freedom and faking the security. I couldn't get a real grasp on the feeling and I was worrying about falling, about going too fast and speeding into uncontrollable, dangerous territory. Feet wobbly beneath me, skates fitting differently, my acquired weight placed differently on the same skates I used for a year. Change happens.

I can't put a finger on what made me want to get back on the ice, I just wanted it again. Wanted that feeling, wanted it bad. Feeling constricted at school, overwhelmed with tests and finals and projects and essays, with a side of the agonizing and endlessly annoying teen drama that seemed to be cropping up at an amazing rate. I wanted to be free of that again, to feel nothing but the speed and the release from a world of things holding me back. Thinking stops on the ice and it's just the body and soul expressing themselves together, dancing in unison and creating an image of a perfect, graceful freedom and certainty of self.

But I was over thinking. Cautious of my steps and preparing each stroke, it stopped feeling natural. I guess you can't force it, but I tried my very hardest to squeeze this feeling out from somewhere within myself. Like trying to get that last bit of toothpaste when the tube has already been flattened.

I turned backwards, going fast, thinking of why I ever let that feeling escape me and how hard I would have to work to get it back. Swallow my pride and admit that things are not the same, hard work went down the drain, and that regret has been haunting me for the past two years. Regret in the form of beautiful, pure white leather skates with shining, sharp, silver blades, mocking me from inside the duffel bag in the corner of my room. Wings, really. Offering me freedom and a release, why did I let go of these?

I decided to try to act normal. Starting with spinning. Winding up, centering myself, and pulling in, gathering speed and the world turned into a blur. Within the circles I was tying myself into it still didn't feel right. Better the second time, and then again the third, but I was dizzy. Did I used to get this dizzy? Things change, I tell myself. They change and you change and you can't expect for things to stay the same when you come back. Can you ever really come back? Always different, things will always be different. Looking at the marks I made from the spin I knew things would always be different. No longer the tight and centered loops my coach once admired, these were loose and unkempt, scattered with no center and seemingly no focus. Things change.
Jumping -- jumping was something I had always been good at. Leaping into the air and letting go of fear and restraint, because with that you'll fall. Muscles and mind working together to focus on the end result, a planned set up and preparation, two rotations in the air, and a stable landing. Trusting your body and believing in the outcome, working in sync, like a well-oiled machine. Come on, I told myself. Jumping is freedom, and it's like riding a bike. You can't ever forget how to do it. It’ll come back to you with this, it will. I warmed up with a couple of simple, single jumps, focusing myself and trying to get the feeling back.

Skating into setup for the first jump I attempted in years: the axel. One and a half rotations. Soon I found myself on the brink of this jump, soon I was in the air, and soon I was landing -- too soon. Edges deeper than they should be, curving and teasing me with a fall. Too deep for comfort, too swingy. Arms and legs and abs and mind weren't synchronized or tight, not working together the way they used to. A couple more tries and I had this jump nailed.

Moving on to the double salchow -- it was nice. This had always been a favorite jump with an easy edge into it, and this was proven again as I landed solidly within one or two tries. Double toe loop next, dug my toepick in and projected myself into the air, an easy two rotations in the air, and a landing. Shaky. But not as bad as I had expected. Eager to move on I picked up speed and circled again, preparing for the double loop. Heading for the wall I turned backwards and aligned my skates, bent my knees and straightened my arms, and jumped, pulling my arms in tight and crossing my legs, rotating and waiting for the definite landing to come soon. It came, not in the way I expected.

THUMP. The wind knocked out of me I sat on the ice, the cold contrasting with the warm hope and joy that had been returning to me. I tried again and fell again, again, again.

That’s what I learned that day: you fall. You fall because things change and when you grow up, you change too. You can't expect things to be the same for you always, you can't expect to return and find everything the way it was, waiting for you to come back, waiting for you to pick up your skates again and lace them up and jump and jump and land everything and be greeted with praise by your coach. Things change.

My feet were shaking, my whole body was shaking. My body wasn't used to this kind of exercise anymore, no more surge of power at the last minute and no more strength to hold onto a landing. Falling and feeling the ice beneath me, the cold truth that everything is in motion and everything is changing whether you like it or not.

You can never really come back to something and have it be the same, just like always, waiting for you. When you leave, you leave. You can visit, but it's no longer a world you belong to. You can stay and fight an endless battle against time and change or you can accept it, move on, look back at the memories with a smile playing around your lips. I’ve never been good at accepting defeat.

The next morning, I wake with battle scars. A body sore in unexpected places, muscles tight, and a dime-sized blister on the back of my right ankle, a piece of evidence supporting the fact that change happens. Bodies change and things don't fit the way they comfortably did in the past. Proof that things are different, a constant reminder with every step I take, needling pain and an angry area of skin, unhappy about being irritated after years of undisturbed peace. Somehow that blister gave me satisfaction. Proof of the battle I was waging against change. A useless, one-sided battle with a predicted outcome of my certain loss.