Relive a part of my past. Hmmm...relive. It's impossible for me to actually relive a part of my past as those moments are long gone and also because attempting to relive some of those moments in any capacity would endanger lives. After giving this some thought, I decided to go somewhere in which many parts of my past took place-the skating rink. From 11 to 14, I spent most of my free time at the Christiana Roller Rink. If I wasn't there, I was thinking about the next time that I would be and talking about the last time I was. Two of my oldest friends were met through roller skating, as was the boy I lost my virginity to. I met my first "boyfriend" there as well as the girl who introduced me to heroin. My friends and I hitchhiked there and panhandled for money to get in (yes, we were a bit more unsupervised than most kids our age). The one and only fight between two boys over me occurred outside of the skating rink. I still feel horrible about that. It was on a phone at the rink that I got the news that my dad had died and it was outside in front of my ragtag group of peers that I first came apart from that crushing loss. I drank, took caffeine pills and snorted heroin for the first time all at the skating rink (not all in the same night, as that would have been dangerous). I learned, lost, cried, fought, loved, made discoveries as well as poor decisions and most of all grew up at the skating rink. It's funny now to look back and consider how much happened in my life between the walls of this public space.

Last night, after double checking that they were still holding it, I went to their Sunday night adult skate. "Adult" in this case means 16 or older. This is the same adult night that I got a fake i.d. to get into when I was 14. I skipped school one afternoon just to get a poorly made i.d. that didn't make me old enough to buy pornography or alcohol but old enough to get into skating on Sunday nights. I was kicked out after an hour when the owner saw me. That was the same night that the aforementioned fight happened. When I walked in yesterday, the first thing that struck me was how young everyone looked. It took me a moment before I remembered that the reason everyone looked so young is because they are. Sixteen is almost ten years behind me. There was a decent crowd and much less pretension in the air than I remember, but that also could have something to do with age. I skated for an hour and was taken aback by how hard it was. My balance and coordination as well as my leg strength are not what they once were and skating provides a very concrete example of this. It took me about 30 minutes to feel somewhat comfortable but even then I didn't want to push my luck. I kept myself moving at a slow pace and (for those familiar) skipped trying to shuffle all together. I am happy to report that I did not fall once. I saw a couple of familiar faces, but I am not sure they saw me and none of us bothered to find out if we had indeed seen each other. There have been run ins over the years and everyone knows at least one person in the network to get updates from on who has kids, who went to rehab and who graduated college. I went by myself and marveled at not only going alone but having a good time while doing so. This is a place where I wouldn't have even entertained the idea of going solo to as a self conscious preteen so to do so, even now, was quite liberating.

I ended up getting a lot more than I bargained for from this task. I spent a great deal of my teenage years trying to relive my past, trying to somehow get a do-over, to get that second chance. This meant that I spent a lot of time being extremely manipulative and lying. Writing a script is one thing but trying to get other people to go along with it without their knowledge is another. I lived in the past and would always wish to be back there. Moments gone by always seemed like moments that I would give anything to be in again. I am happy to report that over the past few years I have moved away from all that. The coming of maturity is subtle and this task is the first time that I've really noticed the shift. I didn't relive my past last night but I did reflect upon it. I looked around and thought about the moments left behind in each corner-bad, good and neutral. My past brightened my now and made me appreciate both time frames more. I didn't feel the need to live anything again or re-do events nor did I feel the want for any of it to have been different. I am happy that my past is my past. I am also happy to report that going skating was so much fun that going again is definitely in my future.