...after a much younger skater had just 5-0'd it. jokingly, i asked him if i'd just one-up'd him, or one-down'd him (get it, number of trucks touching surface)...he just looked at me in a kind of blank, confused, disdainful way...i guess the humor (perhaps all humor) was lost on him (i thought it was funny). anyway, he proceeded to kickflip into a 50-50 right after our exchange, and i guess, in his eyes, settled the matter.
i respect (not admire) his ability, and despite his silly, predictable, adolescent behavior, find much inspiration in his (and his generation's) skating.
do you (and i) love skating enough to keep on keeping on, even though you're not the one shining the brightest at the spot, park, session, etc. anymore? if you have never been plagued with these types of (what i consider normal) concerns of passage, in the first place, you're way ahead of a lot of us.
these are questions that ANY AND ALL skaters--whether they are too young to acknowledge it or not--will have to eventually face...and the answers to these questions will determine if you (or i) are going to be a "lifer," or eventually, just another drop in the vast ocean of people that "used to skate."