Fall from Grace
wow hello! It’s been a while :”) but as I try to find time to write, here’s something I wrote at the end of last year for my final English assignment in secondary school! We had to write a personal essay, and I decided to overdramatise silly imposter syndrome feelings. Anyways here it is in its unedited glory; enjoy!
Yuzuru Hanyu, two-time Olympic Gold Medalist for figure skating, effortlessly performs the most difficult jumps during his programmes. His outfit flutters in the wind and glistens under the spotlights on the rink, grasp of artistry and technique strong. My admiration for his performance then came with a longing to skate, and so I readily accepted an invitation to go ice skating with my friends when they asked.
“How many times have you skated before?” “Twice, both five years ago,” it felt slightly embarrassing to recount my lack of experience. Even so, I wanted to learn the basics by the end of the day. I could be good at this.
I remembered moving at some point in time, making my way around the relatively crowded rink. For a while, I felt content from my motions, seemingly effortless and graceful. This must be how it felt like to skate.
Little did I know, this was short-lived too. With sweat forming on my face and my jacket a tad too warm, an attempt to fix it accidentally shifted my weight backwards. I was no longer standing, and had fallen from grace.
Falling is normal, a fact I was well aware of. However, there was something that pricked at my pride with each subsequent trip that I allowed myself to experience. At times, I would retire to the sides, finding my three friends scattered around the ice, skating with ease and making consecutive rounds, even racing around. It was an enduring sight to see, but I soon realised that none of them had wet patches on their pants, unlike I did. None of them had fallen yet.
I had been looking forward to laughing at our dampened clothing over lunch together, a shared misery, but reality didn’t seem to work the way I perceived it. I was the only one whose knees bent inwards in search of stability, my faltering stance making it seem that I will never catch up as they skate further, and further, away from my reach, practically as though I haven’t already been trailing behind since I met them. X is a top student, always attaining stellar results, Y is extroverted, the life of the party and Z is friendly, well-liked by many as a leader. Where can I possibly stand beside them?
The pain was negligible at first, although when it became more prominent, I lifted my jeans to a horrifying sight. The bruises stretched from my knees to slightly below it, the worse I’ve seen, to the point it felt simply ridiculous. A mocking voice in my head prompted that it was a consequence of my incompetence, and yet, it felt more than its inherent ugliness. With every time I poked at the “gifts” from that day, I would wince, except enduring it felt like an achievement. What if my bruises were a medal, an award for my courage to fall, again and again? There was almost a need to show them off to the world to make up for what I couldn’t do.
I tried to carry them with pride, laugh at them, and I found my bruised ego healing.
As the reds and purples settled down, dulling with time, I recall a distinct intimacy with pain. Pain was a temporary companion, but as it lingered, it brought about realisation that where I stood could notbe where my friends were. In fact, I will never be able to reach them, and there simply was never a need to, because we all have our own rightful places, and we all have our own strengths.
I had overlooked our various approaches to skating; how X had taken skating lessons when she was younger and thus zipped past all of us; how Y was taking big strides every time she lifted her skates, thus being able to cover a larger distance; how Z kept calculated movements, allowing her to keep her stead. Looking back, it was clear how each and every one of us did something differently, something we were good at, and ultimately succeeded, but in ways others did not. With no paths the same, it mirrors the various blade markings on the ice, where no two people crossed the ice in identical routes. Instead, everyone carved their marks onto the ice using what they were capable of, and for me, it just happened to take a great deal of the perseverance I had within.
The most vivid memories of that day are still those of falling, but gradually they no longer became as antagonising as they used to be. Maybe this was how skating truly felt — shattered confidence, concerned glances with every surrender to gravity, but also the beauty of your battle scars, as you find a compelling strength amongst the blue-black imperfections that make you, you.
what a ride! Honestly, it’s not half as bad as everything seemed, and I remembered struggling immensely to decide on a particular moment in my life where I had a “universal understanding” (whatever that means). I think I had some stroke of genius hit when writing this too because I don’t think I could ever come up with a metaphor as good as the “no two paths the same on the ice” one. Also binged a lot of figure skating performances as I wrote this and I don’t ever want others to grade a personal experience of mine again :D (tmi X, Y and Z are actual real people and I’ve omitted their names for privacy reasons but if you know who I’m talking about, bonus points to you)
