Roller skates: Part One

Photo by jana bemol on Unsplash

I got my first pair of roller skates in roughly 2016. Not my first-first pair, I got those as a kid. But my first new pair as an adult, and I did it long before the pandemic came around and brought a resurgence of roller skating with it. I know, I know, this sounds very much like a I-knew-about-it-before-it-was-cool thing, and maybe it is a little bit. I am a 90’s kid, born in 1980, with a hint of gen-x and a penchant for uncool things so OK, I will give it to you. I do want you to know I wanted to roller skate before roller skating was cool. Like listening to Dashboard Confessional.

 So, 2016, roughly, could be earlier, but probably not much later, I went to the Goodwill Outlet with my lovely friend Graciela. This is what our friend dates usually consist of- getting coffee and thrifting. Sometimes we go to regular thrift stores, and other times, when our mental space and schedule allows, we hit the outlet. If you are unfamiliar with the Goodwill Outlet, let me get you up to speed. It is a ginormous warehouse filled with rows and rows of bins and bins of donated goods. I’m not sure how they get there- if they come from other stores or what but I’m not asking questions. There is no order to the bins, baby clothes can be in a bin with bedding in a bin with winter coats in a bin with bras. Sometimes the clothes are wet and you just tell yourself it is because they have been in a warehouse and probably got rained on along the way and again, the secret to success is to not ask questions and assume the best.

There are regulars, there are pros, sometimes they are the same people. Sometimes the regulars and pros wear face masks and gloves which honestly isn’t a bad idea considering I have cut my hand open on something at the bottom of a bin and came up bleeding. Some of the pros stay for HOURS because the bins rotate in and out, so there is new stuff continuously being brought out. I imagine some of these people make their living this way- finding good stuff and reselling it online or at swap meets because what I haven’t mentioned yet is that everything is $1.39/pound. (Or it was the last time I went.) If you aren’t sure how to visualize what a good deal that can end up being, let me help: I can get a whole ass shopping cart full of clothes and spend somewhere between $30-$40. I have once resold a shirt for more than the entire haul, making everything else free. Once I came home with an authentic Louis Vuitton purse. And once I came home with a pair of vintage roller skates in my size, that I had every intention of using until they sat in my closet for another few years.

* * * * *

As I write this, I remembered that this was, in fact, not the first time this has happened. Once, driving through the streets of San Francisco with my friend Amy, we spotted not one, BUT TWO pairs of roller skates sitting on a corner and I know this is going to sound unbelievable but this is a true store- one of the pairs was in her size and one was in mine. We took them home, naturally, but those also suffered the same fate of being put in my closet and never used, only to be re-donated later. But clearly, the universe wants me on skates, so, fine.

* * * * *

Fast forward to January 2022. Roller skating had officially made a comeback. I know this because suddenly, my entire Instagram feed was filled with roller skating. And like, badass roller skating. The pandemic encouraged and inspired people to find new hobbies and outdoor activities and I don’t know what other people experienced, but to me, it seemed like the entire world was on quads now. (I would like to acknowledge that there are communities that have always had roller skating, that this was not a new phenomenon, and that there is a ton of history and culture in roller skating, but I was unaware of this at the time.) After watching reel after reel of amazing roller dancing and tricks and spins and everything else awesome, the influencers influenced me and I was convinced my time had come.

I dusted off my skates, literally, and drove up to the tennis court in our neighborhood without a clue about anything. History of skateboarding aside, I had no idea about wheels or bearings or trucks or anything. Somehow, I didn’t take what I knew from skateboarding and apply it to my skates. But it didn’t matter. I don’t even think I knew yet that I needed to know anything. I cruised around, gleefully, without any kind of protective gear, which is wild considering I do hair for a living (for now.) I listened to music. Took a few spills. Tried going backwards. Tried spinning around. Who needs to start from the beginning when the rink- or in my case, court- is your oyster, right? I also applied this same logic to skateboarding; once I decided I wanted to skate, I think I was at the skate park within three days because I was bored of “the basics.” When I couldn’t ollie within a day, using my carpet for stability while I practiced, as suggested by a friend of mine that was near-pro, I started launching myself off curbs. (Truth, never, in all the years I skated, could I ever quite get the hang of ollie’ing, which really put a damper on my chances for making it to the X-games.) So, I took that same energy into roller skating.

After a day or two of cruising around, (and learning about muscles I did not know existed,) I felt somewhat underwhelmed. I loved the activity and mechanics of skating, but something just wasn’t quite right and I rationalized that it had to be the skates, and if only I had new skates, I could be amazing. This is half true. Aside from my total lack of experience or logging any measurable amount of time of four wheels, the skates were rough. But I had no idea that I could change that- I just figured they were old and just didn’t have modern technology. Maybe I could have done a little digging, and discovered that the wheels could have spun better if they were A, a different size, B, had better bearings, and C, were a different durometer (how hard or soft they are.) Maybe with a little more digging I would have found out that I could adjust the trucks to feel more stable. Or maybe somewhere in my subconscious I didn’t do any of those things because I really wanted an excuse to get new ones. Like maybe the leopard print ones I saw at the mall. Those would be cool. In my defense, they were very narrow, and my toes went a little numb, so there’s that. I also bought wrist guards, because hello.

Knowing what I know about myself, I took into account my propensity to try a new hobby, fall in love with it, obsess over it, and then tuck it away never to be touched again (as I’ve discussed here and here, and a little bit here) while looking for skates. I hit Facebook Marketplace, as I often do when I’m looking for a good deal on something very specific and don’t want to wait for it to be shipped. I found myself a brand new pair of skates that were perfectly adorable and in my budget for sporting goods I may not use more than once. I figured, if I used these for six months and still had an interest in skating, I could get another pair of higher quality ones. Let me tell you what. I took those babies out to the roller rink that night for the first time and the difference between those vintage skates and these was incredible. These had padding, the wheels were incredibly smooth, I had ankle support – it felt like cruising in a big ol’ Cadillac. Definitely the right choice.

I skated on those puppies for about a month, certain I was going to become a hot shit roller dancer. I watched so many videos, convincing myself that absolutely I could do that, went down rabbit holes on Reddit, watching more advanced skaters at the rink absolutely killing it. And then disaster struck. I learned that the skates I had were beginner level, subpar quality and the company itself had had some bad PR. I would most definitely need another new pair, this time a higher quality with a solid reputation, and they needed to be suede and not vinyl because PROFESSIONAL ROLLER SKATERS DO NOT WEAR VINYL BOOTS! Ohhhh the embarrassment! However, I had already told myself I could upgrade in six months, so even though it had only been a few weeks, what the heck. Certainly THESE would really up my game on the slick, wooden floor anyway so it would be worth it. By now, I had done my research, and when I upgraded my skates this time, I also went to a harder, smaller wheel.

My husband actually was the one to upgrade me after I practically begged for them for our anniversary. I explained that the only thing holding me back now was that I didn’t have these top of the line skates, and not my lack of experience. So he obliged. And these skates were beautiful. Poppy red. Glittery turquoise laces. Wheels that looked like sprinkled donuts. I had the coveted, trendy, beautiful skates I had been dreaming of now I was really ready to soar. I felt unstoppable. I felt like I was part of the coolest club in town. I would skate my way into Adult Night like the queen that I am – which is actually where this article was supposed to go. My plan was to talk about my skates and about what it was like the first time I went to adult night at the skating rink, and I’ve had that essay planned in my head for months, but now here I am, almost 1700 words in, and haven’t even mentioned it until now and now it is too late. This is too long and I am not even done talking about my skates, so go ahead and subscribe, so that next week when I post the second half to this story- the part where I tell you about how everything I needed to know I learned at Adult Skate- you won’t miss out. I post Mondays and Thursdays for the foreseeable future.

So now I had the skates. You’re probably thinking to yourself, Oh, I bet you are so good now, what’s your social so I can follow you? Well, you thought wrong. Because while they were better quality, and while the wheels were better, and I could definitely go faster, and turns were starting to get a little easier, there were three problems with these skates, which would take me several weeks to figure out. One, they were too short in length, my toe was pretty scrunchy, but not terrible, until I put in a memory foam insert because there was literally no padding on the inside and they were not comfortable without one, so now my choice was scrunch my toe, or have no padding. Neither was ideal. The second issue was width. Much like my vintage skates, these were also very narrow. Which would have been fine 15 years ago, when my feet were narrow and a whole size smaller, but then I started doing hair. And lastly, the trucks were not lined up properly at the time of manufacturing, so one boot pulled heavily to the outside and I had to work really hard to keep in it line, which made my knee hurt. I couldn’t understand- THESE WERE MY FUTURE! So after a total of three months of skating, I was not contemplating my FOURTH pair of skates.

I was able to send that skate back and have it (mostly) corrected – it fell within their margins- but it still pulled, they were still too short and still too narrow. At least the subpar pair that I had were comfortable and went straight! Why is this happening to me?! Well. I don’t have an answer to that. But I do know that this was all an incredible learning experience, a lesson in patience, and a reality check. Maybe the universe wanted me on skates, but the right ones for me were not the popular ones. I had to forge a new trail, guided by Reddit once again, and the incredibly knowledgeable staff at my local skate shop. So I sold my beautiful skates, and used that money to buy my fourth pair in a year. Still suede, but black, because all the fun colors had to be custom ordered and were an additional $200, and that was a risk I was not willing to take. These, though, were a wider boot, with stiffer leather, and some padding. I made up for the fun colors with my wheels, hot pink and white checkerboard, and threw in some leopard laces. Then I hit the rink.

My God. This was the whole reason. As soon as I hit the rink in these boots, with these wheels, it was like butter. The best way I can describe it was that I was skating in cursive. The comfort, the effortless glide, wheels that aren’t too hard but not too soft. These skates are my Goldilocks, and it only took three other tries to get here. But who knew you could take a life lesson from a pair of skates? Skating, sure- but the skates themselves? But I did. It was a lesson in endurance. In patience. In not giving up. But also, in trusting myself and my instincts, and knowing that sometimes perfect doesn’t happen overnight. I could have continued to suffer in any one of those skates, but I said, no, I deserve something better. I deserve something that works and feels good, and even though there were some excuses made along the way to justify spending several hundred dollars, it all worked out in the end. And maybe these skates aren’t the prettiest skate you’ve ever seen – I mean, they aren’t poppy red, but we all know looks aren’t everything. So, OK, they aren’t perfect. But is anything? The older I get, I think the answer is no. Nothing is perfect, which kind of means that everything is. And maybe I am not a rockstar on skates yet, and maybe I never will be- but I am happy to report that two years and four pairs of skates later, I am still loving it, and still skate regularly, and don’t plan on stopping anytime soon.

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