Full Circle On Four Wheels

By Alex Cummings

There’s a certain kind of freedom that only exists on cracked pavement under open sky. It sounds like wheels rattling over rough ground and laughter echoing off rails. For me, that freedom lived at a skate spot called Ridge, a place that was an escape from reality during my teenage years.

As a teenager, Ridge wasn’t about tricks or talent. It was about belonging. It was about escape. Life felt heavy back then. School pressure, expectations, the constant noise in my head. I was a competitive gymnast, and although I loved gymnastics, it was still high pressure and required every bit of my attention. But the moment I stepped onto a board, even with my painfully limited skill set, rolling around and a shaky standing ollie, the world softened. Skateboarding demanded just enough focus to quiet everything else. No medals. No scores. Just movement, breath, and presence.

I wasn’t good, and honestly, I didn’t care. I never chased progression the way others did. What I loved was the scene, the raw, imperfect community. The way skaters leaned against ledges, swapping stories. The music playing from someone’s speaker. The feeling that Ridge was a little pocket outside reality where nothing else mattered.

Being a girl at the skate spot sometimes felt isolating. I was almost always the minority. But a few loyal guy friends made sure I never felt invisible. They treated me like one of the crew, not an outsider trying to fit in. I was a competitive gymnast at the time, so I already lived in the world of risk and adrenaline. Most of my friends outside of gymnastics were guys because I could keep up in other extreme sports like snowboarding. That overlap gave me entry into a space that might have otherwise felt closed.

Then life happened. Graduation. College. Career building. Responsibility stacked up, and hobbies disappeared. Years blurred together. Fifteen of them, to be exact.

And then, unexpectedly, skateboarding found me again through someone much smaller.

My son is two years old and already obsessed with the skate park. He zooms around on his balance bike, occasionally hopping onto a tiny board, eyes wide as he watches skaters fly down stair sets and grind rails like gravity is optional. He gets so mesmerized that I constantly have to remind him to look where he’s going.

Truthfully, I get distracted too.

Watching these skaters now at 36, I see something I never fully understood as a teen. How incredibly hard skateboarding actually is. The precision. The courage. The repeated failure. The mental strength to keep trying after slams that would send most adults straight home. I realized that gymnastics had provided me with something similar, only with more critique and criticism while chasing the perfect 10 score.

So I did something I hadn’t done in years. I picked up a board again.

And just like that, Ridge came rushing back.

The same escape. The same mental stillness. The same sense of play. Skateboarding cracked open a part of me that adulthood had buried under schedules and obligations. It reminded me what it feels like to try something purely for joy. Not productivity. Not achievement. Just growth.

This summer, after countless failed attempts, I finally carved a quarterpipe. Nothing flashy. Nothing viral. But when I rode it out smoothly for the first time, I shouted loudly and instinctively, “I DID IT!”

I immediately slapped my hand over my mouth, shocked at myself.

Then I laughed.

Because when was the last time I’d done something that pulled that kind of pure, unfiltered pride out of me?

That moment hit me hard. We stop challenging ourselves as we get older. We shrink into comfort zones. We convince ourselves we’re too busy, too old, or too far removed from the things that once made us feel alive.

But here’s the truth skateboarding reminded me of. Growth has no age limit. Joy doesn’t expire. Courage can be relearned.

So to every mom, every woman who feels like she lost a piece of herself somewhere between responsibility and routine, go find that inner kid. Dust it off. Make it proud. Do the scary, awkward, humbling thing that makes you feel new again.

You might fall.
You’ll definitely laugh.
And if you’re lucky, you’ll fall back in love with yourself in the process.

I know I did.