Word of the Week #159:
You know, when I was young, like, really young, my parents signed me up for a skating class.
Now, I fail to see how this skill would prove useful over the course of my lifetime, but okay…
Anyway, these classes… I absolutely hated them!
I was uncomfortable and clumsy, and I always struggled with the equipment.
I was not too bad at it, I thought. I could complete all the drills adequately and I never had any particularly painful or embarrassing falls.
I just didn’t like doing it. It was just not fun.
But every evening, my mom would give me one piece of chewy andy each time I left for the class, and promised another when I got back.
To my young heart, that piece of candy was one of the biggest accomplishments I could comprehend. It was worth the effort, the pain, the overall annoyance.
And for that piece of candy, I kept going back to the class every successive day.
One evening, I was laughing so hard that the candy actually flew out of my mouth and out of the window down onto the road. I swear, in that one moment, I felt a piece of myself die.
Now, considering all of this, I think it may sound odd, but I actually hated that candy too! It tasted like an orange peel flavoured eraser.
Personally, I have always prefer clean, unflavoured erasers, but that is beside the point…
I don’t think I ever mentioned this to my mom. I was never the most vocal of kids. I was always more of a ‘how-do-you-not-know-EXACTLY-how-I-feel-right-now’ kind of kid.
In fact, I don’t think I even mentioned that I didn’t like the skating class either.
Eventually, I did get good at skating. We had switched my old, clunky skated for a new, cool, more cooperative ones. We had begun focusing less on drills and more on free skating.
Eventually, I started to enjoy skating for what it is.
And almost immediately afterwards, the class ended. And I have no idea why.
But at least the candy ended too. And for some reason, I kind of miss it now…
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