Dropping in

I’ve been stuck in limbo. Ever since our daughter died last spring, I’ve been waiting for the doctors to say we can “try again,” to have another pregnancy that could result in a living child. I’m waiting to find out whether I’ve earned the chance to wait another two weeks for a missed period. To wait for another month to try again. It’s always waiting for more waiting.

In this space between, it’s hard for me to visualize the future. Hard to make plans when I don’t know the answer to that all-consuming question: What does the future hold? What am I preparing for? What will life be like in two months? Two years? I can’t contemplate questions in that time frame. Ask me for my New Year’s resolution and my mind goes blank.

I do things to pass the time. I go to work. I come home. I try to stay healthy in body and mind. But nothing really helps me forget that I’m waiting. Yoga class leaves too much space for my mind to wander to its darkest corners. I don’t want to “set my intention,” and I’m having trouble with the concept of gratitude. I usually end up crying on my mat. The coping mechanisms of my past life are no longer effective.

Adult beginner skateboarding class is not where I thought I’d find myself at age 35. After the teenagers have cleared out because it’s a school night, the skate ramp is a haven for grownups with a chip on their shoulder. There’s punk rock blasting through the speakers and not a Baby Bjorn in sight. The instructor asks if I want to strap on safety pads and I decline. I want to feel it when I fall. I can take it.

I want to learn to drop in and do a kick turn, to glide effortlessly around a bowl. The thing about skateboarding is, you can master almost any trick with a combination of repetition and fearlessness. Having nothing to lose is also a good substitute for fearlessness. Or maybe it’s the same thing.

Sticking a frontside kick turn is a goal I can achieve in the manageable time frame of before I leave tonight. I try until I make it, ten times, twenty times, thirty times. I push around the bowl, again, again, until I’m panting and sweating. My skateboard pops up and hits me in the face, leaving a bloody scrape across my nose. I lose balance and my body slams into the ramp over and over, leaving my palms black and blue, my ankle with a limp. I pick myself up and try again, and I stick it.

Later, I look in the mirror and lock eyes with myself. I finally look how I feel. Like I’ve been in a knockdown, drag-out fight and it’s not clear who won. I recognize why this is the chosen form of self-expression for rebellious teens. I’m angry, I’m misunderstood, and I want to spend an hour or two getting out of my head and into my body – but not in a Namaste kind of way. In a bodyslams-on-the-concrete kind of way. It’s also pretty gratifying that all those bodyslams are in service of a small, achievable goal – the mastery of a cool trick. I imagine that does wonders for the self-efficacy of a troubled teen. Or, you know, a grownup who stopped being able to visualize the future beyond about a week.

Today, at least I know where I’ll be next Monday night: with my fellow Adult Beginners, learning to drop in on the ramp. I’ll tee up the tail of my board along the edge of the coping, let excitement override my fear, and fall forward through the air until my wheels hit the ground and bring me up the other side, triumphant.

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Have you turned to any new activities after losing your baby? Have your interests or lack of interests surprised you?