Superfreakin’ Back to You

Back before video games overtook children’s minds, there were such leisure activities as bowling and roller skating. The biggest thrill a sixth grade girl could have was to hold hands with an older boy who knew how to do crossovers on skates while never, ever tripping you up. Under the bling of the disco ball, it was as close to heaven as a twelve-year-old could get.

Rick James’ song “Superfreak” was popular back then. Somehow skating to music made it all the more fun. Later I advanced to ice skating on our frozen pond, when winters in Virginia were cold enough to form ice across its entirety. I would spend hours alone, practicing and laughing and never fearing a fall. I rarely did.

Fear is something that creeps along with experience. You get battered. Bruised. Banged up a bit as life changes  direction. Fear becomes a companion of sorts as you navigate your way on the ice of life. We begin to look for the thinness of it, avoiding slipping through the cracks where danger lurks.

We hold ourselves back based on those fears. We experience less, reducing our lives to what we deem safe.

Then one day some of us realize we have kept ourselves small, not playing full out for fear of…what?

Failure?

Falling?

Societal rejection?

That’s when you stand at a crossroads. That is when the question “Why not?” emerges.

Your ego self will give you a barrage of reasons why not. Its job is to stay in the same place, never changing or allowing you to unfold your fullest potential. Its role is to protect you from harm, real or imagined. Its singular purpose is to keep you dimunitized.

But when largeness moves in, when your ultimate juicy surfaces, it is more powerful than the ego that cries out: “Be careful! Don’t stray too far from the edge of the skating rink!”

Your own gigantic self overcomes those fears. It exists within each one of us. It is the one that says “Yes” when your friend calls to say “Let’s go ice skating today!”

Never mind it has been thirty years since you last gave it a try. Sure, you might be rusty at first, but by the tenth minute on the ice, you start to remember what you are capable of. You pick up the tiniest pieces of yourself that you shattered when life got too hard. You place them back inside, smiling all the while that you never really forgot how to be that huge.

It just took time to see yourself again in all your Superfreakin’ glamour with a ‘Yes’ that came softly, profoundly, and right when you needed it the most.

 

 

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