FREE AND CLEAR

Ryan Sheckler has found something amazing: Himself.

- PETER FLAX

It's tricky to decide where to begin the story of Ryan Sheckler's hard-fought journey to find peace.

Maybe it starts with him writhing and screaming at the bottom of a hulking concrete staircase in Pomona, California, as he reels from yet another awful bone-and-tendon-snapping impact. No doubt, the skater's narrative often has been propelled by how he has willed himself back to his feet after getting pummeled.

Or perhaps it opens with his second trip to rehab. Sheckler had been sober for a few years and thought maybe he could drink with moderation. He was wrong about that. But this time he felt something click inside a deep yearning to alter the trajectory of his life-and now a very public figure who spent a solid chunk of two decades feeling pretty lost has found a better foothold.

Or maybe the story begins as Sheckler opens the front door to his home with a 19-day-old infant cradled in his right arm. His eyes look a little heavy-after all, the skater and his wife are trapped in a sleep-deprivation experiment-but there's an ease to his gaze. Like he's about to launch a huge gap and he just knows he's going to land it. Somehow, he's in his element. The guy that friends and fans sometimes called Sheck Daddy has undeniably manifested that title.

But while the structure of this story's prologue remains up in the air, the broader contours of his journey and even his destination are in sharp focus. Ryan Sheckler is in a good place. "Until recently, my identity-my whole lifehas been tied to skateboarding," he says later, as his daughter, Olive, snoozes in a rocker nearby. "I never addressed who Ryan was as a person. And by doing that, all of these doors have opened and all these situations that used to baffle me and take me for a complete loop have become completely manageable."