Therapy Topic: Roller Skating Birthday Parties

Hell on wheels.

I loved roller skating as a kid. Still do. As someone prone to both accidents and anxiety, roller skating is the closest I’ll ever come to flying and I’m very comfortable with that. I can think of nothing more terrifying than being on a motorcycle because it does not contain seat belts so I’ll stick to wheels I can wear, thanks. I never grew tired of going around and around the oval-shaped rink, feeling completely free, gliding like some sort of avian creature in OshKosh.

Y’all remember Couple Skate? It was that birthday party agenda item in between Abba songs and slightly crusted over buttercream frosting when the DJ (and let me tell you how badly I need a documentary on 80s/90s-era roller rink DJs) would announce to all that it was time for the moment that really separated the Cools from the Not-Cools: “Couple Skate.” Do you remember how that felt? I still feel it just as tangibly as I feel the sock on my left foot sliding down below my heel as we speak. It’s the feeling of being left out.

When I say left out, I mean left out. Never, literally not once in my entire youth did I ever have a boy to Couple Skate with. But we’re not here to unpack the shortcomings of my childhood, are we? We’re here to unpack the messages about superiority that were communicated to us as kids that can lead to the…