It's Wednesday, it's about 3 in the afternoon and I'm back on the radar screen. It actually feels like 3 in the afternoon, which isn't something that goes without saying after the last two weeks we've been through. This weekend we had our annual roller skating gala. Our what? Our annual Roller Skating Gala.
Here's the thing. My wife has been roller skating for almost 30 years now. Not inline skating, not disco roller skating, but figure skating. Just the kind you would see on ice, but then without the ice. Two years ago, the roller skating club she had been a member with since forever decided to call it a day. The board had reached a more than respectable average age and had never really taken care of any succession. Hence, they decided to stop all together. All the members, my darling wife included, where in shock. For a number of weeks, nothing much happened.
But then, about a month later, we are sitting in the garden, sharing a glass of white wine with her niece and her niece's partner, also two dedicated skaters who suddenly had found themselves unvoluntarily deprived of their hobby.
Somewhere during our conversation – and completely out of the blue - my wife and her niece decide to give it a try themselves. "What if we tried to start our own amateur roller skating company?" At first I wanted to know if it was the wine talking, but they were pretty convinced and convincing. "Better to give it our best shot and fail, than look back on this moment 20 years from now and feel sorry we never even tried." I couldn't argue with that. On the contrary, I joined the board.
Today we have just successfully finished our second annual Gala, two performances in a holiday on ice style. You know, with costumes, group and individual routines, music and light show, welcoming almost 1.000 spectators.
We are proud and humbled by the relentless efforts of 86 skating youngsters. "Our kids" got standing ovations and a crowd that brought the house down. I am so proud of each and everyone of them. And I am so proud of being able to share my life with someone who isn't afraid to try, to give it her all, to be vulnerable, make mistakes and learn from them.
I am very much aware that our little skating club isn't what the world was waiting for. That it isn't a paradigm shifting achievement. But it does mean the world to the 4 year old that was celebrated by the audience for being so terribly cute. It means the world to a number of youngsters who are growing up, trying to find their way and are being applauded to for bringing joy and beauty to 1.000 people. It means the world to one young woman that has to live with a mental disability, but can feel as if there is no one more important and more significant in the world than she is, right that very moment when all the spotlights are on her. It means the world to the little girl that found the strength within her self to do her performance despite her recently broken wrist. It means nothing at all, and it means the world to so many young lives.
My wife could have told herself it was the wine and decide not to give it a try.
But she did it and I love her for it.
It's Wednesday and we are starting to feel a little less like wrecks.
Take care,
Karl
