Alive

During my skateboarding days, I searched out nothing but that long ride to get the endorphins pumping. Once I got a good amount in my system, I would get a natural high and would be unable to complete a single thought and depending on how hard I would be going, I would not even be able to complete a sentence. I had become an animal craving nothing but what my body can naturally produce. After many hours and finally wearing myself out, I would get back home, pass out on the floor of my apartment to wake up many hours later to find that I did not even bother closing my door. And there were the nights where I would skateboard with friends, going until I have a good buzz and we would head back to the dorm room or apartment to play video games for hours in total silence while feeling great. Those were some great times.

And there were the days when I would attend the punk rock, the hardcore, and the emo shows. Again, I will go more into this later but I did not always leave a fulfilled man. Some nights, I left just feeling like I had been run over. But somehow the extremes of emotions were what I needed. The times with people who shared the straight edge lifestyle were, in theory, awesome. In practice, not so much...I am getting off topic a bit, but again this was something that really filled my life with joy for some years.

I don't know what changed in me. Skateboarding somehow lost its appeal. Taking a ride down to campus became a chore. Nights spent alone riding for many hours dwindled away. I stopped getting that natural high after a few hours. I went to a skateboard demo to see one of my favorite skateboarders in his new company. Kris Markovich was amazing to me, but to stand less than five feet from him felt odd. Somehow I knew that I was facing a finality. After the demo, I went to the gym and worked out in a quiet bewilderment. The man I was had given way to the man I plan on becoming.

As for the many nights at the punk rock shows, I just grew tired of all of it. The bands started to suck, as did the music. The people became more about the politics of the scene rather than getting together for a great time. I started to become very selective of the shows I went to. There were always some 30-40 year olds in their punk costumes who never changed. I felt like I was no longer evolving, like I had hit my wall. I was going to become that punk dinosaur that strongly held on to ideals that were no longer relevant to the world we live in. I usually left the shows feeling like someone sucker punched my soul. What was usually a good time always turned into me falling into a short bout with depression. I had most certainly outgrown the entire thing.

But that leaves me here, still, many years later trying to put it all together. Where did I go right? Where did I go wrong? Where do I go from here, and why it is so hard to get there? Nothing gives me that high that skateboarding once gave me. A good hard weightlifting session leaves me swollen up twice my size and renders me unable to complete a sentence, but that is about as close as it gets. Is there something that will bring the joy that I once had with skateboarding? Is heavy weight training as close as it is going to get, and will that be enough once I realize it? While I deal with the remaining days it will take to heal up my abdomen, I am going to spend it lost in very deep thought. And job searching, let us never forget that.