the irony of injury
It feels incredibly ridiculous that this is the next thing I'm talking about after last week, lmfao. Uhhhhmmm, I got injured… from skating… two days into getting my new skates.
I was going to not post about this so soon because honestly, it's embarrassing. It's embarrassing to have a fall really just take you the fuck out right after coming out of an 18 day waiting period of not skating. It truly felt like my entire Spirit team stood in line and gut punched me, one by one, and walked away chuckling. Then, with grace, I remembered that Divine Intervention can be painful, but it's never malicious or out of cruelty. It's out of love, care and most of all guidance and alignment. There are lessons in the fallings if you're willing to look deep enough.
After asking myself why I didn’t want to post this, I got real honest with myself — I realized it wasn't because I actually didn't want to share. It was because I was scared of how me and my skating journey would be perceived. That's ego… me and my business aren’t about protecting the ego. We’re about staying soft even when it feels really hard to do. So here I am, let’s get vulnerable.
To be transparent, I'm okay. I just dislocated my elbow because I was way too focused on my feet and not even conscious of any other body part, while also committing about 85% to the trick — which, fun fact, just ensures you're going to fall. I was on day two of really feeling good rolling and stepping into one foot grinds on this really short ledge (the ledge in the video in last week's post). I started to try just slowly progressing in putting more weight into that foot and it was working! Then I actually felt comfortable lifting my rolling foot off the ground slightly and riding the grind a bit. I got it and was doing it for short bursts and just kept getting really excited and becoming way too emotionally invested in the outcome of "getting the trick" — which pulled me out of my body and into my head. BIG mistake. All it took was a split second. I was unbalanced, leaning too forward and… :sticks right arm out fully locked out:… WOOB! I felt and saw my entire elbow shift forward and the banding of my elbow pad double in size… the lava started pooling and pounding around my elbow and wooshing through my whole body. I panicked thinking it was a break, then quickly realized it was just completely out of socket. I exhaled hard, squeezed my eyes tight and pulled my wrist into my chest and felt it slide back into place. WHEW! Even WRITING this has my entire body sweating right now, haha. Still somatically processing the trauma, lol.
Day 1 of accepting the injury and crying it all out.
But I loved myself enough to immediately drive to the Urgent Care and got the most painful x-rays of my entire life, and the sling that felt like it saved my soul. I had no capacity to hold my arm up at all (which was one of the scariest parts). I just hadn't felt that level of physical powerlessness in a while, which always wants to trigger the "spiral of terrible thoughts". Which, to be clear, they did almost get me a few times throughout the week while I was waiting to see the Ortho. But I did my best to stay present and remember all the past injuries that I've lived through.
For example: the time I fractured my ankle AGAIN (for the 4th time in my life) while doing a round off at an adult gymnastics class, at 30 years old, because I was just starting to try and allow myself to love the things that I used to love as a child. Please enjoy this video of me flipping on the tramp before the break. So fun!
Then the break happened, and while this was also in the middle of my terrible codependency, I snapped it right at the start of the session and then I just kept going... for 45 minutes… I was too embarrassed to ask for help and too prideful to act like I was injured.. but I heard it and I felt that snap and I knew in my heart what had happened. This time I was surrounded by people who could’ve helped, but my ego and fear of rejection over ran everything. I wanted to be perceived as a “perfect human” who “couldn’t get hurt”, sigh. That’s just who I was then. But I remembered how, at the time, I thought that I was done for with physical activity. I thought that I wouldn’t be able to physically bounce back, but I was really convinced that I couldn’t emotionally bounce back. Why? Because this was the SECOND CLASS I’d been to and hurt myself. Ego and pride got in the way with me continuing gymnastics as an adult, because I couldn’t return to that class with a brace and/or them asking why I had to take 8 weeks off.. but I also think that part of my life has been over for a while now too. Which is fine, because I’d take skating over anything nowadays!
[Back to 2026] I sat in the discomfort of the powerlessness when I got home from the skate park. I just cried and cried and cried. I let my inner child come out and cry. I realized that I felt like I had failed my inner child by not protecting them from that injury. But after some more tears, realized that I did what I could. I was fully geared (even having crash shorts on), but I also didn't fully prepare by taking these new skates through some fall practice prior to learning tricks that can result in the exact injury that I got (or worse, a break).
So, I can see both sides of the coin — I did what I could, but I could've done better. That all boils down to slowing the fuck down and not letting my emotions override my current skillset and energy level. This fall happened at the end of my session, after already experiencing a lot of success and exerting a lot of energy, physically and emotionally, without really breaking to rest and riding the high of excitement. So there was just a lack of presence and more intellectualizing things, then staying present and listening to my body.
While sitting in the discomfort of the week I waited to see the doctor, I had a lot of fears come up: "maybe this isn't what I'm supposed to be doing"… "maybe I am too old to start this journey"… "am I ever going to feel safe enough to try tricks again?"… "is this something worth suffering for?"… I cried them out. I wrote them down. I felt the fear come up when I visualized skating again. I thought that park was going to be tainted, stained with the fears that could stop me dead in my tracks if I allowed them to.
I still have that thoughts come up, since I haven't been back out to skate again since the fall. "Am I cursed to just go through this massive hate/love thing with skating?” “Why am I still in love with skating and even more motivated to get out there?” “Do I just fall in love with things that hurt me?"…… more and more tears… Then… peace, quiet, stillness washed over me. It was what I was writing about last week. Skating is the thing that I'm willing to suffer for. Skating is for me, not anyone else. Not to be "seen as a skater", but to live like a skater. Someone who doesn't see falling as failure. Someone who gets back up and tries again and again and again. Someone who see the pain as a lesson to grow through. I've learned this lesson over and over again in my emotional world with codependency… now it's time to take this lesson outside of my internal world. It's what I had to do in gymnastics growing up. It’s what we all have experience in at some point in our lives. Learning new skills takes practice, and practice comes with pain from time to time. But to still show up — heart and soul intact, with maybe a bruised physical body, willing to TRY… THAT is love. I had to remember that I'm still relearning how to love… people, places and things… again, in a healthy form, and this was one of those moments that I really fucking felt that click for me.
Now I'm here 8 days out from injury, two doctors appointments in, 8 weeks of PT appointments lined up. With time, physical therapy, ice, love, grace and kindness, I should be back in my skates in 4 weeks! I couldn't be happier. While I know that recovery is going to be uncomfortable and painful at times, I also know that I'm showing myself ,and all my parts, that we really can bounce back, from anything. Commitment doesn't have to waiver when fear shows itself — you can just see the fear, feel the fear and know that passing emotions will not change the passion my heart feels. While it's so fucking scary to know that the thing you love so deeply CAN hurt you, it's also so fucking worth it to stick by it and see what kind of person it's going to mold YOU into being.
stay soft, friends.
with love,
quentin
