Skateboarding Made Me Stop Apologizing for Taking Up Space

• Posted by Dez Fontaine May 16 Filed in Personal #personal growth  #Identity  #skateboarding  #presence  #concrete culture  50 views
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  I never thought about space until I stopped having it. Growing up in a cramped apartment where your bedroom was half the living room and your mom could hear everything, you learn real quick to make yourself smaller. Quieter. Less. You learn to apologize for existing in the way that kids from tight situations do, whether it's physical or emotional doesn't even matter anymore.

  Then I got a skateboard when I was fourteen and something shifted that I didn't have the words for back then.

  See, a skateboard forces you to take up space. Not in an aggressive way but in a necessary way. You can't ride a board apologetically. Your body has to commit. Your weight has to be present. You either lean into it or you eat concrete, and concrete doesn't care about your excuses or your insecurities. The board demands you show up as a full person, not some ghost version of yourself trying to be convenient for other people.

  I remember this one afternoon at the park, just some basic plaza spot, nothing fancy. I was probably fifteen and still self-conscious as hell. This older guy watches me try an ollie maybe thirty times, every single attempt half-hearted because part of me didn't want to "bother" people by being loud and present. He finally just goes, "You're not committing. Your body's asking permission and your board don't speak that language." That stuck with me harder than any trick ever could.

  What skateboarding taught me that nothing else could is that hesitation has a sound. It has a feel. And other people can sense when you're not all the way in your own life. The board becomes this weird mirror where you can't hide your doubt because it literally won't work. You can't land a kickflip with half your mind somewhere else wondering if you're inconveniencing someone. Your board responds to certainty, to presence, to you deciding that you deserve to be there doing this exact thing.

  Years later I realized how much this bled into everything. How I stopped apologizing for taking a seat at the table, for my opinions, for wanting something bad enough to try. Not in a rude way but in a real way. There's a difference between being inconsiderate and being unapologetic about your own existence, and skateboarding taught me that line early when I really needed it.

  The thing about spots is they're not exclusive. Anyone can be there. The park doesn't ask you to justify why you deserve a turn. You just show up and you take it. Over and over I watched people with nothing to prove, no sponsors, no footage, just pure commitment to the thing itself. They owned that space not because they earned some permission slip but because they chose to be fully present in it.

  That's what I needed to learn. That presence is permission. That showing up as your whole self, even wobbly and imperfect, is actually what makes you belong somewhere. Not shrinking. Not apologizing. Not making yourself convenient for other people's comfort.

  So yeah, skateboarding saved me from becoming somebody small. What's something that forced you to stop taking up less space than you deserved?