It's me in every way (story to follow)

I came here to write about the rollerblades and ended up reading old blog entries from 2008. I can't believe I wrote those. I was such a good writer. Writing definitely peaks at early 20s. And yet, I remember reading (probably in 2008) stuff I'd written in middle school and not recognizing who that exquisite writer was. Maybe the peak is 12, 13. But I guess science or history would say it's somewhere in between. I'm pretty sure Rimbaud, Voltaire, Socrates were teenagers when they were in their prime. 17, 19, 16 or something (Voltaire, then, was right if I'm being self-affirming).


Anyway. Let me start again.


Rollerblades. This is actually an entry that has been a long time coming: I got them several weeks ago and have been using/exercising/gotten beat up by them up until I got my new (used) bike (story to follow).


I think my perception of Patti, the woman who gave me the rollerblades is impossibly connected to the actual Patty. I mean, I don't know what I thought she would look like. I definitely knew she was a micro-managing, perhaps a little desperate and always too eager in her sales and her life. She sounded like a woman who knew what she wanted and seemed so assertive to the point of vulnerability. I don't remember what I thought she'd look like.


But I think the person I met fits in well with the person I thought I was going to meet. Tall, dyed blonde hair, wearing a blouse from another decade but not in a dumpy way. In a trying-make-an-impression kind of way. Like her demeanor didn't make you question what she was wearing.  An overcompensating dark-colored "van" (that's what she called it) SUV.


I arrived a good 30 minutes later than expected; we were to meet in front of the CVS and there were 2 CVS's in Herndon that could have been the one she was talking about and I didn't want to call and confirm (of all the calls she gave me, I only made or returned 2, maximum. I'd've been happy to text, but she didn't).


It's a strange thing, when you meet someone in the parking lot for a Craigslist exchange. You're both just sitting in your driver's seat, peering around the parking lot looking for someone with the same expression of... sketchiness.  I pulled into a spot right next to a guy attending to his car (the CVS was next to an AutoZone) and I just thought at least I was only as sketchy as he was (I think an open hood in a public parking lot is too revealing).


Patti brought out the rollerblades from its still-intact box and I have to say I was expecting more. I had 2 other potential rollerblade vendors that had aerodynamic fit for women and reassuring lace-ups in addition to the buckles. This one only had buckles.  She demonstrated how these (great!) blades adjusted to your foot size.  She numerated other tech specs and I knew when I tried on the rollerblade that I couldn't refuse her eagerness, as eager as I was to almost (almost!) ask if I could just pay $20 and not the $25 she was requesting. I just didn't have the heart.


She said that her son stopped rollerblading because of an accident. "He didn't know what he was doing." I was thinking like the independent, adult person I was and chuckled, "Oh, he was traumatized by the event?" So that's why he gave it up? And then she shook her head and said something affirmative, but unsurely. 


I only realized later that she was (obviously?) being a mom--she was trying to tell me that she prohibited her son from rollerblading anymore. It's funny how perspective changes with age. And I wonder, was that my perspective as an autonomous individual (thinking of myself but wearing her son's size 5 blades), a naive projection? Or was it actually disbelief that a woman who carried herself as such was actually raising children, successfully and with strict boundaries?