---
title: In it for the long haul
---

<figure>
<img alt="Art by biddyfox" src="https://post-self.ink/gallery/skateboard.png">
<figcaption>Fan art by <a href="https://www.tumblr.com/biddyfox" target="_blank">biddyfox</a></figcaption>
</figure>

It is important, Motes long maintained, that there must be some things that you are just plain *not good at.*

If you are going to be in this life for the long-haul — and she was most certainly in this life for the long-haul! — there would be plenty of things that she would have the chance to be good at. She was fairly good at painting, yes? And chalking up the streets outside the House on the hill, that house she shared with her Ma and Bee. She was a pretty good actor, of course, for she had her favorite roles to play in Au Lieu Du Rêve's productions. She was an amazing dreamer.

And there was plenty of things that she did not want to be good at. She did not want to be good at breaking hearts. She did not want to be good at growing up. She did not want to be good at being anything other than what she was.

But one thing she was decidedly, cheerfully, joyously terrible at was skateboarding.

She was in this life for the long-haul, and so perhaps she could practice long and hard to become good at skateboarding, and there were times when she might give this a halfhearted try for a month or two, but something about it just evaded her. She could go in a straight line, perhaps. She could sometimes make a turn, so long as it was to the right. She could drift to a stop or tumble into the grass and dandelions, but actually deliberately stepping off the board to come to a stop had led to the most skinned knees of all.

Better, she thought, to lay on her front on the board and push herself along with her paws, or perhaps lay on her back, tail hugged up to her front, as she scooted around down the driveway. Better to sit on her board at the edge of the sidewalk, feet planted in the gutter, talking to her friends. Better to rejoice in the incompleteness of it all, of holding out this one thing and saying, "One day, maybe I will be good at skateboarding. Maybe next year."

After all, she was in this life for the long-haul.
