I strapped on my rollerblades tonight with a feeling of excitement. It has been almost two years since I last skated, and now that I was putting them on my feet I realized that I really missed it. I grabbed Polly (our poop eating beagle) and rolled out into the drive way. That's when I had my first flashback:
It's 20 years ago and I am 8. (Weird that I can remember things from 20 years ago, makes me feel old. Ok, back to the flashback.) It's Christmas morning and I'm laying in bed waiting for the sun to come up so I can wake up the rest of my family to go open presents. We all know the rules, no one is allowed out of bed until the sun comes up.
What my Mom doesn't know is that my brother, Daniel, wakes us up in the middle of the night every christmas to sneak out into the living and behold the glory of what Santa has brought. Christmas always seems so much more magical in the dark living room with only the glow of the lights from the Christmas tree lighting up the room. It makes the tinsel on the fireplace glow and dance above our stockings. It always takes my breath away.
So I'm waiting patiently (as patiently as 8 year olds wait) for the sun to begin to light up my window shade, and when it finally does I bolt up out of bed to wake everyone else up. Lets get real though, the only people I really had to wake up was Mom and Dad. With the lighting of the shade everyone else is up and out of bed too. We all run to the living and begin emptying our stockings of all the yummy Christmas goodies. We know the routine, only one person gets to open a present at a time and Daniel will be handing them out to everyone. We get into position and anxiously await our gifts. We each open a few and add them to the pile next us, but the one that I've been waiting for still hasn't come. Finally, after forever, I get a big heavy box to open from Santa. I just KNOW it's what I really really wanted. I tear throught the wrapping paper to find my very own brand new pair of roller blades. I couldn't wait to take them for a spin. I waited patiently (yeah right) for everyone else to finish opening their presents. A few more pairs of roller blades were distributed. Santa had been good to us.
Once the opening was finished I was out the door like a bolt. I strapped on my roller blades and I was off. I glided gracefully down the street sure that I couldn't be any happier then I was right at that moment. I watched as my other siblings came out into the street to try out their roller blades. I watched them stumble, and fall, and get up, and fall again. I thought to myself, "what's their problem? This is so easy!" Later I realized that it wasn't easy to every one, but it was like I had always known how to roller blade.
I loved those roller blades. I went out on them all the time. I would take out my dog, Cocoa (the poop rolling springer) and let her pull me around the neighborhood. There were a few hairy moments when Cocoa would catch wind of something that she wanted to chase and I feared for my life, but all in all I came out of it pretty unscathed. Those were happy memories.
So back to today: I'm rolling down my street with Polly at my side when I begin to pass a house that is under construction. The entire road in front of that house is covered in gravel. That's when I had my second flashback:
It's 10 years ago and I'm almost 18. I wake up in my apartment at Rick's College early on a Saturday morning. I've been at college for almost 4 weeks and I've loved it. Summer semester is the best. All the rest of the college world is still asleep at this early morning hour on a Saturday so I decide to go out and get some excercise. I pull my trusty roller blades out of my closet. I haven't roller bladed since I moved to Rexburg and I can't wait to get out there again. I throw on a tank top and pair of shorts and I'm out the door. I slowly skate through the complex and into the parking lot. As I roll out of the parking lot and onto the street I realize immediately that I've made a BIG mistake. I live at the top of 2nd East which happens to be a massively large hill. You don't realize just how steep hills are unti you're flying down one like a bat out of hell. As I start down the hill I know I need to find a way out of this situation. I look to my right at the side walk...nothing but concrete. If I lift up my foot to break, I'm afraid it'll send me tumbling head over feet down the hill because of how fast I'm going. So I just look straight ahead and focus on not falling. I'm gainig more and more speed. I start passing the cars driving down the hill and look into their windows with a look of horror on my face. I can see that they're scared for me, but what can they do? Just watch me as I continue to race down the hill at lightning speed. Once I realize that the cars I'm passing can't help I shift my focus back to what's ahead of me. A patch of grass I can drop roll onto? A pole I can grab? A nice soft, fluffy pillow to break my fall? Nope, all that was ahead of me was a torn out street and a road of pure gravel. What can I do? Nothing. I brace myself for impact. I know my ride down this hill is about to come to an end, because there's no way in you know where that my roller blades are going to roll through those tiny rocks. As my feet hit the gravel the last thought that went through my head was "Keep your face up!! You don't want to mess up your face!" So I was sent flying through the air at a ridiculous speed, hands out in front of me to protect my face.
Then everything went black.
Then I woke up on the FIRST patch of grass on the side walk down that blasted hill. Ironic. I don't remember rolling myself out of the street, but I must have because as I laid there on the grass, bleeding everywhere, I heard the screeching of brakes and car doors opening and slamming shut. I hear a woman yelling, "I'm a NURSE! I'm a NURSE!!" As I hear her shoes slapping the ground while she runs to me. I just laid there looking up at the sky. Feeling nothing, but knowing that I was really hurt. I didn't want to look at the damages. The "nurse" looks at me and says, "Honey? Are you ok?" Hmmmm, lets see. I just flew 30 mph down a hill of death and into the gravel pit of hell. Yup, I'm good. She helps me up into a sitting position and looks me over. " You need to go to the emergency room honey." No kidding.
Ok, I sound mean, really this lady was like an angel sent from heaven to make obvious statements about my current situation and drive me to the ER.
Once in the ER I started calling my friends to come and be with me. I had no family near by and was in a serious state of pain and shock. Marci, Nicole, Kirsti, Jon and Rook made their way to hospital to be with me. Wanna know the biggest problem you encounter when you land in a gravel pit at an extremely high rate of speed? The gravel. Stuck all over in my skin. If you could call it skin. So in comes the nurse with the wire brush to begin the process of removing gravel from my hands, forearms, elbows, knees, thighs, hip and stomach. It was more painful than I could ever attempt to describe on this blog. It was awful. They stopped finally when they saw I couldn't take it anymore. The doctor came in and stitched up my knee which had been torn open. Once he was finished he gave me two options. I could:
A) Continue with the wire brush
or
B)Go soak in a big pool of warm water to help lift out the gravel and the nurse would try to scrub it all out with a wet cloth. However, getting into a pool of water in my state of being torn to pieces would be very painful.
I chose B. Anything would be better than that stinkin wire brush. Man, OH man was the doctor right about the pain of getting into that water. The scrubbing was equally painful. The whole experience was horrid. So, it was finally time to get out of the water. I climbed out with Nicole sitting next to the tub trying to be supportive. My feet touch the ground as I get out, and everything goes black again.
When I wake up Nicole is pale white and I'm looking into the eyes of some very concerned medical personnel. Apparently I had passed out and had a seizure on the floor. Scared the crap out of everyone. Luckily for me, I don't remember it happening. :)
This story could go on and on forever, but it ends with me being helped out of the hospital to our friend Rook's car by friends that I love, covered in bandages. Then follows up with going back to the hospital every day for new bandages and another round of scrubbing that made me want to die.
After that I hung up the roller blades for a while. For about 7 years actually. Until I finally got the nerve to buy myself a brand new pair 3 years ago when we lived in Florida. Once I put them on and went gliding down the street I remembered how much I love roller blading.
I will stick to flat ground only though.
