Words by Travis Stewart
I need to put all of this into words because this has been cycling in my head for far too long without giving it the gravity it rightfully deserves. I’m sorry in advance for the wall of text, but I need to do this, for me.
I want to take a step back before I take a step forward. For Christmas in 1992, I was gifted my first pair of skates. Bright yellow and black Rollerblade Varaflex. Little did I know that nearly 30 years years later I’d still be waking up every day thinking about putting wheels under my feet. These silly plastic shoes have taken me around the US, from coast to coast. Around the world, to places that my impoverished family would’ve only seen in films and photographs. These silly toys would give me a sense of belonging, a home, a feeling of being whole for nearly as long as I can remember.
In the late summer of 2002, during the longest and only true break I ever took from skating, it had been nearly 7 months since I had last put skates on my feet. I had no real interest in skating at the time. The 16 year old me was starting to discover life outside the walls of my home and family. I would surf in the morning, hang out with friends in the afternoon, and come home later in the evening. I was developing my own personal style, exploring the music I started to like, and while I still wasn’t driving, living in a coastal community meant I could ride my bike around everywhere on the flat, smooth pavement.
I remember this day more vividly than any other day in my life. I came home and my dad was sitting in the living room which was rather odd at the time. The two of us hadn’t really spoken in several weeks, if not several months. I remember he asked me if I could talk with him that evening because he had some things he wanted to say to me. I begrudgingly agreed being the 16 year old punk kid who only wanted to rebel, but I took a shower, changed, and settled in for a talk with my dad because I figured whatever it was, was important enough for him to say. After getting ready, I strolled to the front of our house and into the room he was staying in at the time.
My father was laying in his hospice bed, with an oxygen line under his nose, and trying this best to muster the strength to talk to me. For nearly my entire life he’d been sick with some form of cancer, and went through several bouts of chemo, surgery, and other treatments to eradicate it from his body. Each time, stopping it from progressing or shrinking it down, but never fully winning the war.
This was different this time though. For my whole life, my dad was an inspiration to me. His strength kept our family going when times were tough. When we lost our house due to his bull headishness and spent a few months living in a tent in a camp ground, he kept working, he kept our spirits up, he never gave in. Two days after one of his cancer surgeries, I can remember being on a rollercoaster at Sea World with him, watching as this indestructible man got beat around so he could show his son and family a rare good time out some where that wasn’t free. No meat on his bones, just getting rattled to pieces.
Tonight, I instead saw a man who was broken, fragile, defeated. We started to awkwardly converse about what’s been going on, what I’ve been up to, and a number of other things that have escaped my memory over the years because they really weren’t important details. I remember the conversation coming to a head when he bought up skating though. He asked me “Why don’t you skate any more? You were damn good at it, and I don’t understand why you quit?” I made up some excuse that it was lame and I wasn’t interested in doing it any more or didn’t have friends to skate with. He said “It’s like you were dancing on air” which prompted me to respond with “That’s exactly why I don’t do it, because that’s lame.”
“Look, you’ve gotta own it” he said. “I’m the greatest damn roofer to ever live. I know everything you’ve got to know about roofing. I can estimate a roof from just a glance. I know what materials you need, how much it’ll cost, and what the timeline to get it done will be. I know it because I worked my ass off for a lifetime to be the best at what I do. You should do that. In whatever you put your mind to, be the best, and don’t stop till you get there.”
We continued to talk about skating, about life, about love, and about a number of other subjects but always going back to this credo he imbued into me. I remember still having a chip on my shoulder but understanding what he was telling me. I knew this was important to him to tell me these things, and anytime he ever gave me advice, I’d listen. No matter how frustrated I might have been, I’d listen. I gave him a hug and told him I loved him and headed to bed.
I was woken the next morning by my mom. She had tears in her eyes and only said “Dad didn’t make it last night”. I took my time getting up, changing my clothes and making my way back across our house to his room. I wasn’t hurt, or sad, or lost, I just remember the feeling of existing in that moment, nothing more. When I entered the room, there he was, eyes closed, empty, hollow, and at rest. I walked across the room and placed my hand on the chest of the strongest person I ever knew and felt the empty shell that was left. It absolutely broke me. Even writing this, fighting through the tears as it breaks me to this day. That feeling of empty when I touched him was the most desolate and hollow feeling I’ve ever felt in my life, and I knew that he was forever gone. To never hear his voice, to listen to his wisdom, or to see him walk the halls. again. He was gone. I knew that he held on as long as he could to have this one last conversation with his only son and once he did, he didn’t need to fight any more. The words he gave me the night before amplified in weight and volume around my head.
When the ambulance came and took him away, I remember seeing all the prying eyes of people around my house coming out to watch the spectacle of a white cloth over a body on a stretcher, guided by a family in mourning. I felt like a circus animal put on display for someone else’s pleasure. I was just 16 years old and I didn’t know what to do or where to go. My mind was a wash, but instinct seemed to take over me. I ventured into my closet, found my USD Psirus skates, and just headed out to my local skate shop, Skate Bomb. I didn’t know why, but deep down this was what I knew I needed to do.
So started my climb. Every day, every hour I wasn’t in school or working, I would skate. I’d get to Kona Skatepark at 10am when the doors open, and I’d leave at 10pm when they closed, 7 days a week. I let skating consume me. I started to get better, and better, and better. Just like the words he provided me, don’t stop till you’re the best at something. So I kept climbing.
I started competing in contests. I then left Florida behind in 2004 to move to Portland for a change of scenery. I enrolled in college, bought a Canon GL2, Century MKii 0.3x fisheye, and a G4 MacBook Pro with Final Cut Pro. I started to learn to film and edit, I started to skate bigger hand rails and do bigger tricks. I started to travel around the state and pickup my friends to go skating and filming with. I got a steady job but still skated in all my free time. I started competing in bigger contests. And even bigger contests. I flew back to Florida in late 2004 to compete in the RFCC world finals and made it to the semi finals against some of the biggest pros in the world. I kept climbing.
I came home from that event on the highest high you could be on. I just got my new pair of Remz, and I knew me and those fresh white Haffey 04 LE’s were going to go the distance. I was skating at a higher level than I had ever before. I owned every park, ramp, ledge, and rail in front of me. My style was starting to come into its own and everything was lining up that I had worked so hard for the last 3.5 years towards. I was at the Newberg skatepark and just blasting as fast as I could around everything. I came around the park and hit a huge opposite mute grab 360 over this roller and my world came to a stop. When I fell from the sky and landed just slightly over rotated, my ankle folded and shattered under me as I came down to the ground. I laid on the ground pleading for help as it felt like everything I worked towards was over.
Two surgeries and 4 months later, I went back to Newberg to get revenge on that trick. With a fire in my eyes I dropped in and sent a misty flip up and over the gap with a firm “fuck you” as I stuck the landing and rolled away. I went back and reset and decided to one up my previously failed 360 by sending a bigger 540 over the gap this time. As I started to come back towards the ground from my rotation, my world again grinded to a halt. I laid on the ground with my hands on the back of my head and arms over my face feeling that I had truly hit the end of my career. My left ankle was now shattered exactly the same way as my right was only 4 short months ago; over rotating my spin in a nearly identical way as the last crash on this same ramp.
This injury was the pivot for me. I knew that I wasn’t meant to be or was going to be the best skater in the world and while also acknowledging that this was around the peak time of the ‘kill yourself skating’ era. So I did what I do best, I took a moment and I adapted to the problem in front of me. I started focusing more on work, and instead just skating for fun. I still competed, still skated super hard, and still was successful, but it wasn’t the only thing I devoted my life towards. I focused more into the industry side of things and working to help foster our culture and events. I’m not going to meander through every detail between the injury and today, but it’s important to this narrative to explain how I got got to this moment.
So fast forward to 2016. I have a serious career as an engineer for a world renown website company. I travel for skating events still but this time getting paid utilizing my unlimited PTO. I’ve got a good paying job and overall, life is pretty good. Sure it’s got challenges here and there, but holistically, it’s good. Daniel and I started tinkering with the idea of what would become Blader Union in late spring of 2016. It would take us nearly a year before we’d roll out our plans and bring to life what we thought was the final push needed to unify all of skating back under one roof. We could do it bigger, better, and more aligned than anyone in the past. My connections, skills, and development background would only further help us succeed. This was my path to be the best at something. So Daniel and I started to build.
In May of 2017, Blader Union launched to the world. It was a labor of love, a work in progress, and more so, something I felt like I could give back to the skating community for the years it’s given me. Hours a day were invested into the site. Late night phone calls, new skills learned, apps developed; it was stressful but a necessity for success. We pushed everyday to better our vision and our work from the day before. And each time, our reach grew, our followers bloomed, and our vision became more focused. So we’d pressed on.
I flew across oceans to events on my own dime to stream live videos to people who couldn’t join us. I spent hours on calls with people interviewing them about their outlook on skating. I worked closely with some of the biggest pros in our industry to promote and share their visions with the world. I sacrificed myself into the void to bring this all to life. I did this because I believe in the idea of what Blader Union was doing. I believed in the future of Daniel and I’s brand, our vision, and our evolving success. All the while, not watching my own back for what was looming just out of reach.
These last several years have been challenging for everyone across the globe in many different ways. With the very public rebirth of fascist ideology in the free world, the murders of innocent people at the hands of those sworn to protect us, the polarization and manipulation of people through social media, the world feels more disjointed than ever. I’m not here to argue about your beliefs, or what you support or not from the above sentence. I’m sharing my feelings and how they’ve impact me and my world. I’ve had too many sleepless nights worried about the future of freedom in my country, my friends, my life, my job, myself. I’ve worried myself to the point of just fully breaking under the stress.
Last year for my 35th birthday I decided to removed all social media from my life. I backed up all my data from the various social sites and apps and hit the delete button for what I assumed would be the final time. I did this because I was personally disgusted in how much social media had infiltrated my life. With everyone’s overinflated exaggerations of how glamorous their lives were, or how much every single person needed to say everything that was on their mind, all of the time. This echo chamber of vanity was an enticing siren for so many people, with the allure of fame calling them even louder. I didn’t want to fake it any more. I didn’t want more stories, or tweets, or posts, or likes, shoutouts, tags, upvotes, anything. I just wanted some fucking silence for once. When I could no longer walk between both worlds, I decided to willingly leave them behind for my own good.
But that’s where a lot of the trouble started to come into view for me. Disconnecting from social media only made me realize how deep this addiction goes, and the fact that this noose was so tight that there is no going back from it. As I focused my time back into the site and our vision, I took note that most brands seemed to focus in on just posting on social media for new products or video parts. That the video format I went to college and studied had been bastardized into a ‘short’ or “gotta post this to my story or else it never happened”. The more I embedded myself into our future, the more convoluted it became. This machine behind the scenes keeping you attached and syphoning away your life, your time, your joy is not of your own control. When everything you do has to be done for an audience, how much of it is your own free will and how much of it is what you’ve been conditioned to do?
I found myself trapped in a prison that I couldn’t escape. The problem for me is that this prison is still here, and each day I feel I stray further from the light. Each day creeps me ever further into differing shades of gray. All food has become bland, all my tasks have piled up, and all of my will power has diminished. This defeat feels imminent. Gray. Everywhere you look. No other color. Just gray.
Standing here, speaking about my past, about the deep mechanics of who I am felt like it would be cathartic enough from afar. I thought that simply by admitting I was depressed and adrift mentally would solve the problem, but it hasn’t. That’s the hardest part of all of this. Exposing myself to the world isn’t the solution here. But speaking candidly about who I am, why I am, and where I’ll be going seemed to be a necessity for this next step. So here I go.
I spoke about my past because my past defines me as the person I am today. I don’t quit. I don’t stop. I find the solution. I fix the problem. Even at its hardest and most complicated point, I find a path forward. I’ve always been this way. I’ll sit, ponder, tinker, and eventually solve. Part of that is the promise I made to my father on the night he passed away. I’m never one to back down from a challenge, be it technical, physical, or mental. I am strong, I am smart, I am resourceful. But today, I am none of those things.
In order to move forward, I need to let go of the things I simply do not love any more. The parts of my life that no longer bring me joy, that no longer make me feel like what I’m doing, I’m doing right. I asked myself a very honest question and when I didn’t hesitate with my answer, I knew the right choice I needed to make from here. I asked “If you woke up tomorrow with a terminal illness, what would you do? Where would you invest your time with the small window you may have left?” I knew my answer for a long time in advance, even if I was hard to admit.
I am stepping down from all things Blader Union and leaving the company I helped build. No, I’m not facing that above question literally, but mentally I’ve arrived at that precipice. I reflect back on the last 5 years I’ve poured into this brand. When I reflect, I see the New Years I left my girlfriend completely alone as I stayed up late into the night launching a native Blader Union app for iOS and Android. I reflect back on the Thanksgiving dinner I walked out on and left cold to go meet a fellow skater at a skatepark to shoot a photo for our company’s social media. For the hours of fighting with my phone standing in the middle of a skatepark floor to get a functioning live stream going for people who could only point at its flaws. For the endless hours I feel I’ve spent trying to sway a generation to swing together in harmony to advance us forward. And more so, for the last 3 months of feeling lower than I ever have in my entire life and only finding the one common string in the fact that I don’t love what I do any more.
2022 will begin my 30th year with skates on my feet. From my humble beginnings on my yellow Variflex’s to the handcrafted excellence I skate on now, there has yet to be a moment where I regretted skating being such an important part of my life. I feel this unstoppable wave building inside me though. This tidal pull of “Just try a little harder” and “I don’t want to today” sway with more power and ferocity than anything I’ve ever felt. The mental warfare I endure day in and day out for something I gain no ground from. I feel the creeping loom of depression hanging over my every waking moment. Even putting these words to paper has taken me over a week to do as I constantly fight with the want to scrap this entire post and just try one more time, or to simply write “so long and thanks for all the fish” and be done with it.
I’d be easy for me to point fingers at things I don’t like, or things I can’t improve, but the reality is that this isn’t one problem. This is a hydra that grows with each new solution I seem to find. I spent nearly 2 months on the road this summer. Living out of my camper van, just me and my best friend for the last 8 years, my Mini Aussie named Merlin. I spent so many hours thinking about the “what if’s”, the “just this one more thing’s”, the “one more night to do this right’s”. When I finally broke free of those thoughts it was the first time in years that I just felt free. Sitting quietly in the backyard of someone’s house in rural Maryland. No timelines. No coverage. No requirements. Looking back, I’m not reflecting on the two of us talking about the future of skating, or how we’re trying to making our next move, or how we’re going to solve the blading crisis with another project. I’m reflecting on the feeling of the ramp under my feet, the smiles on our faces, the fight to stay upright in a world that only wants to break you down. I’m reflecting on skating with friends at his ramp by the lake, getting pumped up together and trying things that should be physically impossible by conventional means, and not caring about the story, the photos, the video, or the ‘proof’ that I was there. I found myself caring about just being a part of skating and not the presentation of it.
I don’t want to be the machine any more. I don’t want to be the decision maker, the poet, the designer. I just want to fall back in love with skating again. Sitting alone at the skatepark, headphones in, staying upright. Traveling the world with no obligations to anyone or anything. I just want to be free of the machine or at worst, be a small part of a whole on my own timeline. I felt the weight of the entire sport on my shoulders along with my undying need to deliver, and I simply could not. 9 months ago I built a functioning green screen studio in my home, and to date, have only been able to find the will power to stand in front of the camera a single time. I know it’s time to let this go.
I currently have no creativity as every shade in my mind is gray. I have no will to build because I don’t care what happens next. I have no want to improve because its taken everything from me already and yet this darkness still looks to me hungry for more. And so for the first time I can remember, I’m letting go. I’m putting my faith in the foundation I helped build and walking away without looking back. I’d be lying to you if I said that I won’t regret doing it but I need to go back to that question I asked myself. I have to honestly remind myself that this isn’t for any of you or for anyone else. This is for me. For my life, my mental health, my sanity, my future. I don’t want my 30th year skating to be the first thing in life I truly regret.
I wish you all the best with everything from here. I wasn’t alone in building Blader Union and I hope I won’t be alone in bringing down what we’ve helped create. There is a momentum to what we’ve started. I’m so fucking proud of that team and the mountains they’ve climbed. We have put so many hours into bringing this vision to life and there are still so many chapters that are unwritten. Some words though, may be best left unsaid. I’m so grateful for all the sacrifices everyone attached to the brand has made, and the progress both personal and professional they’ve achieved. Looking forward, I also no longer see the light at the end of that shared tunnel for me. I know my own time there has come. Over the coming days, I’ll be discussing what that means with the team and the brand as we look forward into what the future may hold.
I often find solace in the lyrics of songs. I pour my heart into the video work I produce often tying the symbolism of those lyrics to bring an emotion into the things I do. I did this with Mzansi and I’ve done it with a number of other videos and projects I’ve made over the years. As I was writing this, I was drawn back to a lyric that meant a lot to me in the past. I feel like it’s a good way for me to close this chapter of my life and begin to move forward.
Weep not for roads untravelled,
Weep not for paths left lone.
Cause beyond every bend
Is the long blinding end,
It’s the worst kind of pain I’ve know.
Give up your heart left broken,
And let that mistake pass on.
Cause the love that your lost
Wasn’t worth what it cost,
And in time you’ll be glad it’s gone.
Weep not for road untravelled,
Weep not for sights unseen.
May your love never end
And if you need a friend,
There’s a seat here along side me.