Ice Skating

For those of you who don't know, I am a very lazy person. I relish a challenge, but a different kind of challenge than the conventional definition of the word.

I don't like challenges that drive you to eye-bleeding exhaustion, that drain the life out of you or, even if you don't get to that extreme...challenges I find difficult.

I like challenging boundaries. I like challenging expectations, demands, opinions. I like challenging other people, and I've made a lot of enemies that way. For example, I liked skipping a grade in English because that was challenging people and making a lot of enemies, but there was nothing really difficult in it for me. On the other hand, I detest a whole variety of things because they don't come easily, like English does.

But this hasn't held true for ice skating. If you follow my track record I should hate ice skating. I have to wake up early. I'm one of the oldest beginners at the ice rink. It's often mind-numbingly cold. My feet feel like they're on fire for most of the time. I'm not particularly good at skating.

But yet I love it. There's something indescribable about it that makes me wake up early on weekends and endure my boots from hell. There's something incredible about the feeling of floating across ice that makes you tolerate sub-zero falls, and bruises on your knees, ass, palms and pride.

I think I'm addicted.

Sometimes all I do is count how many days it's been since I last went to the ice rink and how many days until I can go again. I think I'm obsessed. There's this thrill that comes with almost falling, this thrill of going so fast that you're a blur, there's a thrill of standing in the middle of a deserted ice rink and feeling like the queen of the world.

I swear, it's better than drugs.