Motivation

Injuries! So as I sit here trying to brainstorm about skateboarding, I wonder: what is some epic story I can write about? ...Nothing came to mind. I keep thinking; What about what happened to me lately?... still nothing. Ok. What about what happened to me today! Bingo. Injuries.

So I didn't get injured today, but I wasn't far from it. Being injured sucks yet, makes me want to skateboard more. Right now I am recovering from three injuries total: two overextended feet, and a dislocated pinky. The dislocated pinky is the fun one. I'll save it for last.

So anyway, sometime mid January I decide to skate Mountain Park. I had a good sesh, met up with an old friend, and got close to nearly all the tricks I wanted to get for the day. The day goes on, the sesh ends, and I take a nap. Feeling rejuvenated, I am up for almost anything. Some of my other friends want to get together for a sesh. I am hesitant at first, but I'm like: Gotta go for it! So I'm like, "Sure, I was already up there once today, but I'll go again. Just gotta remember to take it easy." Big mistake.

So this time it's about 5 pm instead of noon, I'm back up at the park. Worn out from the previous sesh, I keep it pretty cool. I landed my tricks once that day, didn't need to do them again. I take to the banks. Sesh goes on, it's pretty fun despite being the second sesh at the same place in one day. I take this trash can and lay it on its side. TJ says to me, "You're going to get in trouble for skating that." I completely ignore him. I go back far enough to get plenty of speed to crack an ollie over this old thing. I go for it, and get over it, but something just doesn't add up. Bam! I land on the ball of my right foot, and hyperextend my big toe.

Ow! I went to the ground. I didn't think it'd be that serious of an injury, but here I am, over a month later still complaining. Now, it's nowhere near as bad as it was, but still, I am not at 100%...


I take it easy for about a week, skating the driveway here and there, busting out a few no comply 180's, nothing intense. Joe has the weekend off of work and wants to build a box, so I'm like, I'll help. The box takes about a day and a half to build so the night of the second day we decide to take it out.

The sesh gets heated at the old underground ledges, a covered parking garage that we head to for rainy weather sessions. My foot is good enough to skate, I'd say about 83%, so I pay it no mind. End of the sesh I go for a little wallie off one end of the box (The box has slanted ends by the way.) and I land on my left foot almost identical to how I landed on my right foot about two weeks earlier. This one isn't as bad as the first one, but I occasionally have to pop the top of my foot in the morning.

Now after that incident, I would still skate lightly. I hit Bay a few times and would mainly do moves that don't require much. So this past Monday, after working on the basement most of the afternoon, I want to go out for a skate.

I borrow the van and head up to Mountain Park. I warm up and get all my basic moves first try. I should have gone home after that, but that euphoria I get had me high. I decide to try something new. I intended to go for a lip to tail on the 6 foot, but I leaned over too far. I put my hand out to the box and POP! goes my pinky finger. I had popped my pinky finger out at the second knuckle, just as Justin Eldridge did his ring finger in Yeah Right. Oh my God I thought. I look at it for a few seconds and immediately pop it back into place. It looked a lot worse than it actually felt, so I come home, ice it, etc. Whatever, done.

So now I sit here, a few days later, after coming home from skateboarding again, up at Mountain Park, where this time I had fell on the hand that I had my pinky dislocated, in a way that didn't hurt anything and have come to the conclusion, as I have many times before, that I am unable to stop skateboarding.

There is something about skateboarding that I can just not let go.
These injuries don't deter me from skateboarding, they actually increase my desire to go out and do it! It is a change in the game. A new set of parameters to follow, sort of like a new board or something, but only with your body, and not as fun as they inhibit your abilities.

At the end of the day it's all about how you look at it. Some may look at it as a way of giving up. I look at it as a way to continue and grow. Life is not about how many times you fall, but how many times you get back up! So remember that.