When I was thirteen, two kids moved into my neighborhood. Twins. In the interest of protecting the guilty, let’s skip their names. Early 1990s vernacular would’ve classified the two of them as “skaters.” They had the look: long hair, flannel shirts tied around their waists, wearing grunge shirts, too-cool-for-you attitudes, and an actual quarter-pipe ramp built out of plywood, formica, and pride in their driveway within two weeks of moving in.
My two best friends started hanging out with them almost immediately. Which meant if I wanted to hang out with my friends, I had to hang out with them too. So I tried.
I tried to become a skater.
I wasn’t one, though. Not even close. I was the kind of kid who had read The Hobbit twice by age ten and Jurassic Park twice in three days when it came out. I played piano. I used a comb — when my hair wasn’t buzzed off. My clothes were rarely considered “cool,” unless you asked my mom, who assured me that rust-colored corduroy pants were timeless and homemade shorts were “in.”
But I wanted to belong. I wanted to be around my friends. So I begged my parents for a skateboard. And because they were good-hearted and very broke, they found a cheap board with killer trucks and wheels — a setup that looked the part even if I didn’t.
It didn’t matter that I couldn’t ollie. Or that I wiped out hard on their plywood ramp more times than I can count. Or that, deep down, I wasn’t even interested in skating. I just didn’t want to be the kid left behind.
Then came the fight.
I don’t remember what started it. I only remember it was real — my first actual fistfight. Justin (fine, one name) threw the first punch. I countered with a weak jab to the stomach because I was a nerd with no upper body strength. Then came the punch I do remember: square to the jaw. My face hurt for months.
It’s been more than 30 years since that happened, and my dad is probably reading that story for the first time along with the rest of you.
That was the end of my skating career.
I bought some rollerblades. I avoided the twins. I turned that skateboard into an assistant for lugging garbage cans to the street. I still hung out with my real friends when I could, but the performance was over. I didn’t have to pretend anymore.
The funny thing is, that fight, while painful, was a kind of gift. Not just because it snapped me out of an identity that never fit, but because it taught me something I’ve been re-learning for the last thirty years:
Desire becomes a burden when it isn’t truly yours.
It’s easy to spot in hindsight, but harder to see when you’re in it. There’s always some job, or role, or identity I want so badly to fit into that I start reshaping myself around it. Not because I love it. Not because it lights me up. But because I think it will earn me a seat at the table. Or keep me connected to the people I care about or important to the people who pay me.
That’s where it gets blurry. Because desire isn’t always selfish. Sometimes it masquerades as loyalty. Or ambition. Or just trying to be “the kind of person who shows up.”
I’ve seen it in my work life over and over again.
The desire to do a good job becomes the persona of someone who never says no. The desire to be competent becomes the performance of having all the answers. The desire to matter turns into carrying more than my share, saying yes when I shouldn’t, and quietly resenting the people I’m trying to impress.
You can forget where the line was between genuine desire and performance. Between being motivated and being contorted.
I didn’t need a skateboard. I needed permission to stop chasing things just to keep up or fit in.
I don’t know exactly when it started to shift. Maybe it was years of burnout. Or the growing pile of half-done and barely-started projects. Or just the slow erosion that happens when you pretend for too long.
But somewhere along the way, I realized I’d been hauling around other people’s expectations like they were my own ambitions.
So I started letting them go.
At first, it was gradual. A quiet no here. A backed-out commitment there. Then one day, about nine months ago now, I quit. I walked away from a company I helped build and a job that looked impressive on paper but was draining me faster than it was paying me.
I’ve written about that day before. It wasn’t a moment of rage. It was a moment of clarity.
I left because I was finally learning to care about myself again. Not just for the sake of peace, but for the kind of work I actually wanted to do. The kind that doesn’t require me to be someone I’m not.
Real desire is lighter than I expected. It doesn’t demand to be dragged. It invites you forward.
But I still forget that sometimes.
I realized I’d been hauling around other people’s expectations like they were my own ambitions.
I still catch myself halfway into something — a new role, a promising opportunity, an unspoken dynamic — and realize I’ve slipped back into performing. Trying to be who I think they need. Wanting to be seen a certain way.
And when I notice it, I try to ask the question I wish I’d asked at thirteen, standing on that plywood ramp in tattered shoes, pretending I knew how to “drop in”:
Do I even want this?
Or do I just want to belong to the people around it?
If any of this resonates with you, I wrote a book you might appreciate.
It’s called You Don’t Have to Escape to Be Free — a collection of honest reflections about identity, meaning, and building a life you don’t want to run away from.
I’m still learning how to tell the difference.
Still learning how to let go of old wants before they turn into new resentments. Still learning that desire doesn’t have to prove anything to be real. And that I don’t need to be everything, to everyone, all the time.
Some days, I forget.
But other days, I remember. I drop the performance, lay the skateboard down, and walk away lighter.
And that is enough.
Thanks for reading, and before you go. . .
I’m Aaron Pace. I write from the middle of things — life, business, fatherhood, faith, and the slow work of becoming someone I can live with. Not as an expert, but as someone trying to pay attention.
If this piece resonated with you, I’d be honored if you followed along here on Medium. I write — not because I’ve arrived, but because I’m finally moving again.
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