Dr. Paul O’Connor, of the University of Exeter, recently interviewed 30 middle-aged skatedboarders to get a sense of why, despite the increased risk of injury, these people still do it, or even take it up for the first time.
The answer?
It helped them cope with the depression that often hits us, midlife.
*****************************************************************************************************************************
A longtime skateboarder himself, O’Connor told The Post he was “confronted with grown men fighting back tears, literally lost for words in grasping to communicate the importance and gravitas of their pastime,” during his research.
And, for some women, who tend to feel “invisible” as they age, according to one of O’Connor’s interviews, it’s a chance for them “to do something … that is empowering in a truly novel way.”
*****************************************************************************************************************************
Some boarders also said skateboarding helped them reconnect with “the freedom of youth.”
I like that point, and it’s why I imagine it would be more emotionally meaningful than running in a straight line.
Now that I’ve hit my 40s, with a young family, the “freedom of youth” moments are increasingly rare.
Of course you can channel it by doing young, fun things with your kids, but it’s paired with the heaviness that this fun thing you’re doing isn’t what it was because……….. you’re responsible for everyone.
Remember when you were only responsible for yourself?
A few years after we had our first child, I took a solo plane flight to see my mom. There I was, strolling through the airport — just my backpack, my irresponsible flip-flops, a complete unknown. I felt like I was 20 again. And if I wanted the $12 Big Mac at the airport I could pick that, or if I wanted to just ignore my hunger, I could do that.
I never knew the freedom of youth I could feel, just by walking alone through an airport, wearing flip-flops, with a backpack.
It’s nice to revisit the old you.
My midlife crisis came at 37, when my dad passed away. I then read this book by Nick Page, which is a pretty good one.
He noted that the German term for mid-life crisis is “Torschlusspanik” which means literally “door-shut panic.”
The doors to your youth are closing quickly, and you didn’t even know it and you know you can’t stop it, try as you might (And many do try. In vain).
Suddenly, we remember the freedom of youth and anything that can reconnect us like skateboarding — well, it can bring people to tears for good reason.
That’s not to say everything that’s good is in the past, and therefore has passed.
We do, after all, have a different set of things to look forward to, and there’s the, ahem, Resurrection.
And there’s a reason why Solomon warned us about nostalgia (which I’m particularly prone to), and I’ve written about that here.
But it is, nevertheless, true that we have the most life when we’re least aware of it.
That is, after all, what youth is.
[Photo: Pexels]
