Today is Monday and  I am sitting at home thinking about my skating accident that happened 42 years ago, knowing that I have been blessed. 

Crazy that so much time has passed by and when I reflect on all the turning points in my life, especially this one, I truly know that in tragedy there can be hidden gifts.

I learned so much at a young age about discipline, passion, dedication to craft. 

There was joy on the ice, hopes, and dreams. There was a community at the rink, the dance classes, in playing at the club with all my friends. We were rosy-cheeked, engaged children.

We had schedules, goals, and competitions to attend. I learned how to sew at 13 ... my mother was terrible at sewing, and so Mrs. Dick one of the ladies at the rink shared a skating outfit pattern with me and explained the basics of how to sew a skating dress.

I made friends with the sewing machine and began creating skating outfits for competition as well as carnival costumes for the Skating Club Shows at the end of the season.

I loved it and it was so fun for me to express the artistic idea of the skating program not only on the ice but to create outfits that expressed the skating program as well.

Not only did the outfit idea have to go with the program, I had to learn to create outfits that were practical  ~

How do you get into it? Can you actually move in it? Would the seams rip? 

I learned to test the garments before a competition or show program.

We looked at the lighting in the rinks to see if the color of the outfit would remain the same. For instance, we considered if the rink was a " blue light rink " then the red fabric might come out looking a deeper burgundy ~ 

Who knew that many years later at age eighteen I would be struck down in a skating accident that would effectively end my career? 

Who knew that Fashion would be the way I continued to express my creativity and that sewing my skating outfits would fast-track my Fashion career? 

Who knew that the Home Ec department in my academic school at BNSS would have talented teachers who taught us in the sewing classes to make patterns, learn all the handwork techniques taught in couture schools and how to make bound buttonholes, pick stitch zippers and hand roll silk hems?

I feel blessed to have had the life of a competitive figure skater and I remained friends with so many of my fellow rink rats as we used to call ourselves. 

I feel blessed that my career in fashion took off... and I truly know that the discipline and determination that I learned in skating made all the difference. 

I feel blessed that skating also taught me how to be my healthiest best. It prepared me for healing myself with exercise, good nutrition, and supplements. In later years, it was again this knowledge that was the basis of my healing from my near death experience 5 years ago. 

Today I am reflecting with gratitude that while I felt that my beloved skating was taken away from me, that it also gave me all of the gifts that I needed to live a beautiful life.

May your life be filled with much joy and many blessings, 

Cydney 

xox