just skating a mellow halfpipe all by myself for an hour took so much shit out of my system. it took me half an hour to warm up, which i expected because of how shaky i've been on my skateboard for the better part of the past two months. inexplicably.

at one point, at the end of a run, i stood up on the platform and realized that i had just landed pretty much every trick i can do on a halfpipe in one run. is that even possible?

then i realized it wasn't because i didn't do anything switch. technicalities.

so i go into this thursday with a tentative newfound vigor. i want to believe i have come out of this slump but i'm still dubious. much rust has been worked out though. i'll still feel lucky if i make it out of the first heat. whenever i am skating against professionals rather than just in front of them, it makes things so much more microscopic. if my feet aren't over the bolts at all times i feel like a failure. it's hard and i know it's irrational, but i didn't become proficient at this shit by not caring. i just feel like i'm getting worse about it the more attention i garner for it. it's no longer a surprise when i do well, it's expected. last year, for instance, i just sort of 'showed up' to something no one (my sponsors) really expected me to enter, which was sort of insulting because it makes me feel like i'm like that band that a label signs just because they can move units and not because they create good music. like i am sponsored because of reputation alone. i don't want to be that guy that someone saw skating once and threw him in the corral with the other commodities and is kept under the belt of the company like infantry or something.

is it that i have to constantly prove my validity to myself or am i trying to prove it to them? i feel guilty being sponsored, which is sort of lame and makes me constantly try to give them reasons why they give me free stuff. i don't know if i'll ever be good enough, especially considering i feel my skills diminishing with age, which is the hardest thing to admit. i try to chalk it up to being tired or having a bad day or something, but when my legs don't work as fast as they should or i'm slower getting up, or i feel the weather in my joints, the sneaking suspicion creeps in that eighteen years of abuse might be catching up to me. this thought lasts a millisecond and is replaced with strategies for doing whatever it is i am becoming incapable of doing.

as long as i can skate better switch than the average kid at the skatepark can normally i think i am o.k.

tonight, in framingham, i think i briefly defied my chronological age.