Something On My Own

Today after my friend dropped me off at home (after church and lunch), the house was empty so I decided to dig up my (barely worn) roller blades and get some exercise & fresh air. I decided to skate to the neighborhood park to enjoy the scenery in  a car-free space. Anyway, I followed a trail that goes around the park behind an elderly man who was on a mid-day stroll. I never caught up to him even though he was barely three meters ahead of me to begin with. He glanced back a few times and as we went uphill, I fell further behind but as we went downhill, I veered closer. There was one point on the trail where it was significantly steeper going downhill. As I was about to go down, I heard the squealing of tires and a loud "PAKK" sound. I looked ahead and downward. A car had swerved and driven right into a "No Parking" sign just at the park entrance. After checking it out to see if it was safe for me to continue, I went. I sped up really quickly going downhill but I knew I didn't really know how to stop so  I decided to fall. It was a controlled fall, where I landed on my buttocks with my arms not touching the ground. I bent low before falling so that the impact would be lessened. After I fell, the man turned around and came over as he saw me on the ground. He held out his hands towards me to help me get up. I was a little embarrassed so I just spat out, "Hi sorry - I'm not very good at this! Just trying something out..." and he said, "That's OK! At least you weren't like them!" while pointing at the car. We laughed and then I thanked him for helping me and he said, " I can't even skate!"

What a nice man. I guess this term has been pretty quiet for me in terms of the number of meet-ups and social interactions I have. It would have been nice to do things like this with someone else but I thought about it honestly and if I only let myself do activities when I'm with a friend then I would probably never do a lot of things. Sometimes you just have to do things on your own.