bonding through skating

By: David F.

When I was doing sports at the beginning of my freshman year I didn't ever feel like I fit in with the “sporty” kid. I eventually stopped doing sports because of lack of interest. When I did leave, I had no idea what to do with all my new free time. I had been spending most of my time at school doing football. It was almost like a “what now?” moment.

One day I was at my friend's house and we were in his room watching South park. I was on my phone, when a skating video popped up. While watching it I suggested we start skating as a joke to my friend. I had no idea how the joking remark I had just made would change my life. A few weeks later I was once again at my friend's house when he said, “Hey, I got a skateboard.”

As the weeks went by we started skating more and more, going out to new places and started hanging out at our local skatepark. Then our other friends also started skating. Soon almost our whole friend group was skating. The first trick I ever learned was an ollie. I did it off a curb and I was so happy I had finally landed it after almost an hour of trying. I was out almost everyday. I   realized I'd gone from being in my house and doing nothing but eating food and being lazy to skating everyday.

Skating gave me a reason to go outside and be physically active. I started seeing myself losing weight and so did my friends and family. 

At that point I’d been skating for almost half a year and my life was completely revolving around skating. Around this time, I wasn't in the right head space and I didn't feel like doing anything. My friends saw this and took me out to skate with them and the memories I made that day will be ones I'll remember for the rest of my life. One memory I have is us meeting up at a Jack in the Box downtown. Some of us were inside getting food and the others were skating outside.

We’ve come so far from where we started. We've learned so many tricks, gone to different areas, skateparks and cities, made so many new memories and friends. Now my friends have moved schools, houses and they’ve gotten jobs. We don't skate with each other as much as we would like to, but we still try to make time to hang out. When we do, we have a great time.

One thing is for sure, skating has undoubtedly changed my life. I have absolutely no idea where I or my life would be if I didn’t pick up this piece of wood with wheels on it.

For The Warrior Times, this is David Fuentes.