Roller Skates

I have roller skates sitting in a dusty corner of my room. They sit there nightly, daily, waiting to be used. The day is yet to come where I fly down a promenade parallel to a beach at sunset. When I got them that was the image in my mind, like the videos I had seen. I was definitely not in England, probably Los Angeles or somewhere warm. When the skates actually came in their cardboard box and I opened it up to reveal the bright pink and yellow fabric, I saw how grey everything around them looked. Maybe that was the start of reality sinking in.

I put them on, shaky on my feet, but with a shadow of whatever skill remained from my young roller disco days. Rolling the few centimetres it took me to reach the bottom of the stairs made my heart jump and I made mental plans to get practice in them on the long stretches of pavement outside my house. At least then I’ll feel more experienced by the time uni comes. It’ll be a good conversation starter and a nice hobby to take up, I could even skate alongside Zoe on her skateboard. I took one picture of my feet posed in the skates. It looked retro and it was a picture I ended up using on all my dating apps for months after.

They were a gift from my nan, quite expensive for a spur of the moment purchase, especially since I hadn’t skated in years. I thought that maybe the pressure from the price would also motivate me to practice on them, if the mere idea of me skating through the streets wasn’t enough.

I never went out in them at home. Packing for uni and preparing became a priority as well as the general worries of lockdown. How long can I use the pandemic as an excuse for any and all behaviour? I did use them a little at uni though. I would roll carefully, clutching desperately onto a hand belonging to a person I probably wouldn’t say hi to in the street anymore. He would guide me over the pinecones and speed bumps in the car park outside my dorm in early october, spurring me on. Sometimes my flat mate would put them on and fall from surface to surface in the kitchen, skating up against the wall, hitting the table and falling on the sofa all the while screaming and flailing her arms around, much to my amusement. But then they’d be put at the back of my closet with my high heels I never wear. They stayed there for the whole school year and it’s pretty much the same now except they’re not in my closet, they’re sitting proudly beside it, on show.

They still start conversations, on face time with someone new. “You skate too?!” is the usual question, and I’ll explain I’ve never really used them, but I used to skate all the time as a kid. They never ask why I don’t use them, and I don’t know what I’d say if they did. Maybe because I know I won’t be perfect at it right from the start, it’s going to take time and practice and a little bit of failure. I know somewhere in my mind that I’d be able to get quite good at it, but do I want to go through the falling and the embarrassment before I get there?

It doesn’t feel fair that I let such a nice pair of boots become ornaments and ice breakers, that was never their intended purpose when they arrived at my house. One day I’m sure I’ll feel the setting sun on my skin, golden and warm like sticky honey. The ground will be a memory beneath my wheels, an afterthought as faces pass in a blur of moving bodies, the ocean always in the corner of my eye. I just have to start by putting them on.