Skateboarding Saved My Life

Skateboarding saved my life.  Almost 14 years ago, the last day of 3rd grade, I started skateboarding.  Right when school got out my brother, and some of his friends went to a park in the attempt to learn some of the fundamentals of skateboarding, I was just tagging along.  We attempted to learn how to ollie, the most basic skateboarding trick, that warm summer afternoon, and ever since then, I was hooked.  I would practice ollieing every day, and I even convinced my parents to buy me my first skateboard from my local skate shop.  The board was a cheap Speed Demon complete, and it was not the best board, but it was all I needed to start.  For all of us, skating was so new and infant that we would skate for hours in our driveways trying the same trick over and over.  This new foreign activity was turning into an addictive drug, I couldn’t live without it.

As the years went by and high school came around all the friends, I grew up skating with slowly began diminishing until I was the only one left.   It was lonely, I didn’t have many friends, and I felt like I couldn’t do anything right, but I knew that I would always have my skateboard.  I somehow continued to have the motivation to skateboard every day.  It was also tough to find any motivation because it was getting harder to learn new tricks and I had no one to learn from.  Although it was difficult, I still had a dream that helped motivate me to work through this hard point in my life.  I just wanted to be sponsored for skating, and get some sort of recognition for the amount of time, effort and work I put into skateboarding.  Finally, after 5 years of skateboarding, I finally got sponsored by a local company, Third Coast Skate Co.   My dreams’ were finally coming true.  I still didn’t have any friends and felt incredibly lonely, but I finally had a team of skaters that cared and supported me.  Without skating and the skate team, getting through high school would have been almost impossible.  Skating truly helped me get through those hard times.

Skateboarding also kept me from falling down the wrong path and has actually helped me stay away from various drugs.  Most of my friends that stopped skating fell down the same spiral of drug use and addiction, it made me realize how their only savior is skateboarding. This disconnection from skateboarding caused one of my good friends to lose all motivation to complete school work.  He was sent away to a school in Michigan to rehabilitate himself.  The rules at this school were strict, and skateboarding was damn near impossible, further disconnecting him from what he truly loved.  When he got back, having freedom without the structure of skating made his junior and senior years very difficult.  After he was done with school, he was conflicted about what to do next.  This search lead him right back to his skateboard, instead of doing more drugs in his free time he spent it skateboarding.  When he went back to skating, his drug abuse and addiction almost seemed to stop dead in its tracks.  It was at that moment, seeing my best friend transform from an addict back to a skater when I realized how important and influential one piece of wood with four wheels can be.

Once my good friend recovered from his addictions and he was back skating with me every day, the skateboarding team I was on began falling apart.  The owner of the company slowly lost touch with the team riders, and soon enough all communication was lost, and the team was stuck, confused with what to do next.  I was lost, I finally had found a team I connected with and was living my dream, but it was all gone.  I knew that all I could do was continue to skate and my board would lead me to my next destination.  I would never have expected the next destination to be having a fantastic girlfriend. I met this girl, and she made me the happiest I had ever been.  I continued to skate, but now I finally had what I had been missing all those years, someone that genuinely cared about me.

Senior year of Highschool was ending, and I was so excited for summer to skate, and do so many fun things with my new girlfriend.  It was the best summer of my life.  We went camping, hiking, and I skated so much, I had never been happier.  It was truly amazing, my life finally felt fulfilled, I had friends that genuinely cared about me, and I was progressing really fast in skateboarding.  I never knew what happiness was like until that summer, when I truly found what I was missing.

Everything was terrific until college came.  My girlfriend was heading to Boulder, and I was going to Colorado State.  We planned to stay together, but not everything went according to plan, and a week into school she broke up with me.  I was devastated, I didn’t know what to do or how to handle it.  All I could do was pick up my skateboard and ride.  It felt like I was back to where I was before, lost.  Not only was I lost, but because I had finally found true happiness I became more depressed and sad, then I had ever been before. 
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I decided to think back to my earlier years.  How did I get through my problems when I was younger? The answer was always skateboarding, and it made me realize even when everything was going wrong, I still had my skateboard.  I was still struggling with my thoughts and the loss of my happiness and my best friend, but deep down I know that as long as I have my skateboard, I can get through anything.

I continued skateboarding and a year later met the women of my dreams and I am still with her to this day.  We travel the world together and with her I have been able to find happiness again.  Without my skateboard I would have never found her, and I would still be stuck as I once was.  I am so grateful to have met my girlfriend and to have gone through all the emotional trauma my ex caused me.  It makes me who I am today and has allowed me to learn and grow.  Without trauma and sadness there would be no happiness.  We need sadness in order to experience happiness, one cannot exist without the other.  Nothing lasts forever and, in this realization, I have been able to move forward and appreciate every moment as it comes.  My ex taught me many valuable lessons through the self-help journey that followed the breakup, and my girlfriend showed me the light at the end of the tunnel.  Without her I have no idea where I would be.  Thank you skateboarding for leading me to the most amazing women in the world, and for helping me proceed down a long continuous journey of self-help.