With new skates on my feet, I stepped from the safety of the grass and rolled uncertainly onto the walking path that loops around Audubon Park. My legs were stiff and shaking, wheels turning from the momentum of that last step. I held my arms out like a woman on a tight rope, afraid to fall.

I used to skate all the time as a kid, well into my early twenties, actually. When I was 18, my friend Jennifer and I would skate by the Lakefront singing songs we knew. One night we sang the entirety of The Beatles White Album Part One. I don’t think we even had a conversation. We just rolled along effortlessly singing songs that were well out of style by 1994. “Dear Prudence…won’t you come out to play? Dear Prudence…great the brand new day-hey-hey-heeeeeeeey…”

But yesterday, skates strapped to my feet for the first time in 25 years, it was like I’d never skated before. Luckily, I was trying this out during my lunch break at work with my coworker Alice. The university is right across the street from the park, and I’d thought, “This is perfect. I’ll get exercise, have fun, and enjoy the sunshine. It’ll be just like getting back on a bike.”

Ah, the lies we tell ourselves.

I rolled on the concrete for a moment, tried to push off with my right foot, fell, and caught Alice’s arm on the way down.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” I said, clutching her, and pulling myself upright.

“It’s okay,” she said.

“No! I’ll take you down with me!”

“You’re doing great!” she said.

Alice is one of the most positive people I’ve ever met in my life. I could have been flat on my back on the ground and she would have hovered over me and said, “Nice form!” She’s part of my team in the Student Success Center and we tend to be a group of encouraging people by nature. So I was worried that using her for balance was bothering her and she just didn’t want to say anything. Alice is strong, but much shorter than the tall, lumbering 48 year-old on wheels who was clutching onto her like a cat trying to get out of a swimming pool.

I stopped moving my feet, bent my knees slightly, and righted myself. Alice took my hand and walked me along, saying supportive things all the while.

“Look at you,” she said. “You’re getting it.”

“I used to have it,” I said, trying to move my feet and squeezing her hand for dear life. “Where did it go? Why am I not as graceful as I was when I was nine?”

“Well,” she said, and couldn’t think of a positive way to end that sentence.

She started to talk about the house she’d bought and how she and her partner were redoing it, making it livable and theirs. I listened , holding her hand, daring to move my feet. I played with letting go a few times, skating by myself for seconds and thinking “I’m doing it!” and then quivering like a jello mold and grasping her outstretched hand before I plummeted. In those little moments I felt a child’s glee. Skating is like flying on your feet. You don’t go higher, but you soar.

Eventually. When you learn how to do it without collapsing on your coworker every other second.

At some point a man who looked a little older than me, elegantly rolled past us on my exact skates – black, four-wheeled ones that said “derby” on the side.

“Sir!” I yelled. “Sir! How are you doing that?”

He spun around, smile lighting up his face. I explained to him that this was my first time skating in a decade or two and couldn’t remember how to do it without pitching forward. He showed me some pointers. “You want to push your feet out,” he said, demonstrating the motion.

“It takes a while,” he said. “I just got these a year ago and it took me a few weeks to get it right. Keep practicing.”

I thanked him for stopping and he flew down the path, making it look like nothing. I was inspired. I asked Alice more about the house as we started moving again. After a few minutes I let go. I remembered what he said about how to move my feet.

“You’re doing it!” Alice said.

“I am! I’m skating!”

And then I hit a bump. Fell straight to the ground on my knees. Alice grabbed my hand to steady me. Both of us were silent.

“You alright?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I said, trying to sound brave while thinking, “This is embarrassing and I want to go home.”

“Alright, get back up,” Alice coaxed, offering two hands.

It reminded me of when my dad taught me how to ride a two-wheeler. There were times I would tip over on the bike and I would think about how maybe learning to ride a two-wheeler wasn’t necessary. I could quit. A lot of people didn’t ride a bike, right? But my dad would help me back up and say, “Don’t think about it too hard. You’ll fall a lot, but don’t let that get you down.”

Then I remembered that, just like the bike, it took me a while to learn how to skate when I was nine, but eventually I got it. Years later, after much practice, I was flying along the Lakefront, singing, and not thinking about technique.

I reminded myself that eventually I would get to that point again. So I got back up, and moved my feet again, accepting that I would probably fall while trying to remember what it was I used to do that made me glide.