Fun Mom or Pathetic Aging Dork?

I went roller skating last night. It's one of the few sports I can do. I think I can still ski okay, too. But don't ask me to play anything involving a ball. Too much running. I like sports that let you coast. Like biking. Downhill.

So every couple of months, Katy's school reserves a roller rink for a skate party. It's a long drive, and the place is surrounded by gun stores, used car lots and pawn shops. It's called Rollercade. I've found information that it opened in 1984, but its MySpace page (yes, it has its own MySpace page) says that it's 56 years old (and female). I graduated from high school in 1984, so I still consider the 80s to be recent history. This place looks like something out of American Graffiti or Happy Days. Its big bright flashing neon sign is not "retro;" it's a true anachronism. Its interior walls are carpeted in colors usually reserved only for bowling alleys and cheap motels-—geometric designs in purple, orange, yellow, and gray, all time-worn and matted. The rink is encircled by a waist-high cinderblock wall well-coated with a good quarter inch of layer upon layer of (probably lead) paint, hot dog grease, and Jolly Rancher stickiness. The snack bar steadily exhales its popcorn butter and ball park nacho cheese breath into the asbestos-laced air. It's dimly-lit, like a good roller rink should be. All the better to be mesmerized by the dusty and chipped disco ball that still twirls proudly, pretending to be a full moon winking at the world below. The place is a bit of a dump. And I absolutely love it.

It's like time travel. I can feel its history and see its ghosts. Big-haired, blue-eyeshadowed girls giggling over boys in parachute pants and skinny ties. I see Marcia Bradys and Wally Cleavers and even a Lenny or a Squiggy. Mostly I see my 7th grade self. I feel that ache of unrequited love for the popular boy who didn't know my name. I remember that sick feeling in my gut when the lights would go down and I'd hear the first few bars of that Styx song, Babe. (If you're around my age, you can hear it now, can't you? So beautifully heartbreaking.) That song meant it was time for the couples to skate. Boyfriends held their girlfriends' hands and rolled slowly by, feeling that teenage hormonal kind of love. The kind of love you felt slow dancing at the prom with your dreamboat sweetheart as if no one else in the world existed. Back when "4-ever" really meant something. (It meant you had no concept of just how long forever could be, but it also meant that the grown-up real-world definition of forever didn't matter at all.) I would watch the couples and pretend not to care as I seethed with envy and self-pity, watching the secret object of my innocent desire wrap his perfect arm around his perfect cheerleader girlfriend. I didn't have a real boyfriend or feel that "4-ever" love until I was about 17. Too old for skating. I imagine if I had been one of those lucky couples skaters, a trip to the rink today would still be bittersweet. Of course, for them, more sweet than bitter.

Whoa, I went off a little there, didn't I? I only meant to say that I skated the entire time. I was lapping all the kids, and sent only a few of them clattering to the floor in my wake. I weaved in and out through clusters of clumsy skaters like the roller derby queen I imagined I was. I resisted the urge to sing along to the music. They played a lot of Hannah Montana and Jonas Brothers, so I had to act like I didn't know the words, lest I make a real dork of myself. And I resisted the urge to do the hand motions when they played YMCA. Good thing I was sober. I did catch myself singing when they played Smash Mouth's All Star. And yes, I did do the "shape of an L on her forehead." I think my kids still think I'm a fun mom. Unless they have me snowed and they're already mocking me behind my back. I wouldn't put it past them. Anyway, I was glad I had made a chiropractor appointment for this morning. Now I'm off for a hot Epsom salt bath. Time travel can be a treat for your mind, but it's hell on your body.