Low diatribe

Seven adult children. Seven grandchildren.

The Many Hands Skate Fam rolls deep when we show up to the rink or the park.

That's what we call ourselves, or at least what I like to call us.

We have a motto.

Skate first. Skate hard. Get back up.

We even had it written on the fridge for a while.

Not as a rule.

More like a reminder.

We said it enough that it stuck.

It became one of those things the kids repeat without thinking.

Part rule, part encouragement, part identity.

---

With the rink in Eldridge closed, we've been making an effort to hit the park more. Even so, it's been a minute since I've laced up my skates.

We were at the skatepark with some of the Fam not long ago.

I was on a bench, nursing my own knee after a fall.

The knee being the visible part of it.

Then my nine-year-old grandson went down.

The kind of fall that makes everything stop for a second.

Before any of us could say anything, his older brother was already there.

Eleven.

"You can do it," he said. "We get back up."

Simple. Automatic. Certain.

Not a speech. Not a lesson.

Just something he knew.

---

And that's when it hit me.

I'd forgotten.

Not the words.

The feeling.

The feeling of knowing — without thinking — that falling is just part of it. That you don't stop to evaluate the fall. You just get back up. The motto wasn't a pep talk. It was a fact about how skating works. About how all of this works.

The job search has a way of grinding that down.

You start measuring everything. Counting attempts. Second-guessing every step.

You fall, and instead of getting back up, you sit, paralyzed.

Thinking.

Was that the right move? Should I have done something different? Is this even working?

You start treating the fall like a verdict instead of part of the process.

I stopped writing for a while too. Stopped drawing. Stopped picking up the guitar and the ukulele. Stopped exercising. I stopped doing everything. Well, I did binge watch all of Parks and Recreation, but I stopped showing up for the things that mattered. The paralysis was so slow I didn't even notice it happening — until I did.

A flash of clarity courtesy of my grandsons.

Same pattern. Same second-guessing. Same sitting with the fall longer than necessary, turning it over, looking for what it meant.

Turns out it meant the same thing.

I had stopped skating.

---

But children don't do that.

They fall. They feel it. They get back up.

Not because they're tough.

Because that's the game.

Skating includes falling.

Always has.

Getting back up isn't the recovery.

It's the continuation.

---

Somewhere along the way, I turned it into something heavier than it needed to be.

Like every fall meant something about me.

Like it was data. Evidence. A signal about whether I was on the right path, making the right moves, being the right version of myself.

It doesn't mean any of that.

It just means I'm still skating.

Hearing him say it pulled me back to that.

"We get back up."

Not motivational. Not inspirational.

Just true.

---

I got up off the bench and went down the ramp with the two boys.

I once again bit it. Spectacularly. Strangers winced. I lay there for a second, staring at the sky, letting the rush of pain and adrenaline wash over me.

I got back up.

We went around the park one more time before we left. The three of us. Nothing profound. Just skating.

---

A few weeks after that afternoon at the park, something shifted.

Not the answer. But movement.

The job search is still the job search. But a consulting engagement came through for the next four months — a ray of light without being the destination.

More than enough to skate toward.

---

This is the quiet work right now.

Not figuring everything out. Not finding the perfect move.

Just —

Skate first. Skate hard. Get back up.

Every day.