Lightning McQueer needs to speed #illegal

"Ignore the title I needed something about me going fast. Also just more topic brain dumping cause this should be on the lighter side"

- Abby

I don't know how describe my need to go fast. I've always loved that rush you get when the wind is in your face, knowing that one wobble could be the end. Maybe not the end but the end of your bones for a few months. That feeling of putting your life in the wheels that you control. 

I grew up on wheels, and my father made sure of that. Raising me, he always made sure that I had a skateboard, scooter, bike, roller skates, roller blades, a ripstik, a hoverboard (albeit it was a gift from another person but my point remains), at one point he even tried to get me on a unicycle but that one didn't turn out too well for 9 year old me. 

The point is, the gust of wind whipping my hair back has always been a familiar sensation, and since then, a sensation I have been deprived of and crave once again. Well, this week, my longing was satiated, as I had just acquired for myself a new fresh pair of roller skates. 

For years I wasn't really able to get on any kind of wheels. First of all, space was an issue. Our house isn't considered large by any means, and we have no kind of backyard. Well, there's a deck but not any space there anyways. Going outside was always a difficult task with my parents holing me in the house in fear that I get kidnapped or mugged (100% justified concern, considering everything in the world right now), but the biggest factor of this was my time. School had taken up almost all of it, and when I wasn't doing school or eating or drinking water and anything else of the sort, I was resting so I could survive to go back to school. "Resting" typically consisted of writing, or playing video games, something that didn't take energy because school was draining all of my energy. 

Recently, however, I've finally been able to rekindle my passion and love for skating (thank Sk8 the Infinity for that, also yes I know it's about skateboarding but the similarity of wheels, being stupid and going fast is till there), and I've been able to make the time to skate, so I finally got myself a pair of Riedell Crew Skates. 

Today (technically yesterday but I have yet to sleep so it doesn't count), with my father checking out new church buildings, and my mother at work, I decided to go for a skate. After messaging and sharing my location with a few people who could call the cops, slipping a sharp knife, fully charged tazer, and knife into my pockets, covering my ears with my headphones, I slip on my skates, lock the door behind me, and bolt for the walkway beside the railroad. 

With "Romance Is Boring!" by Los Capesinos! blasting down my ears, rattling my bones. My legs move, my knees bend, I lean forward, and before I know it, that atmosphere whizzed around me once again. The one that brought me back to me and my elementary school friends shoving 4 people onto one hoverboard. The one that had me seeing the trees pass by as my torso is upright on a jeep with no doors, smooshed between two of my cousins, the three of us with our hands up, yelling as the trees pass us, the same thing happening as we get drenched in water. The views I see as I'm ziplining, water thrashing as I dip my hands out of the speedboat, gripping the bars for my life as my best friend shoots us through the forest on her atv. 

In that moment, the most serenely chaotic moments of my life sped me forward as I felt myself unlock a part of my soul that hadn't been touched in what felt like a millennia. For that singular instant, I was once again a naive child, unaware of the world, only aware of that need to go fast.