One year, two year, green year, blue year

It's been a couple of months since I last wrote but it's been a busy couple of months. It's been a busy year to be honest.

Since I last wrote, I've done the following:

-Gotten married and thus became a step-mom












-Traveled to St. Louis

-Joined a church
-Started gardening again













-Started cross-training in parkour
-Got yet another new set of boots, Antik AR-1's, after trying on as many pairs as possible










-Turned 31
-Traveled to Colorado

Among all of that, I've found some time to skate and a lot of time to reflect on derby and life in general. I've come to realize that even though my progress is slower than I'd like it to be, I have a lot on my plate and can only do so much in the time I have. Priorities have never really been my favorite thing. Something always ends up having to be put aside. I'm also not really good at priorities, at least, I haven't been in the past. I've gotten a lot better at that in the last few months. I've learned that my body can only do so much and will shut down on me if I push too hard. I've also learned that it's okay to not have derby be my number one priority. This has probably been the strangest part of it as I really want to play derby. Right now, I'm training to play recreational derby. In order to really play derby, I'd have to find an entirely different line of work and for me, derby isn't worth it. I enjoy my job too much to leave it and work in an office with normal hours. In fact, I'm sure I'd go extremely twitchy and not last very long in such an environment. Days in which I'm stuck behind the computer usually end with my head hurting because I'm having to write justifications for billing or why we should buy something. These are not my favorite days. Regardless, it's okay that derby isn't my end-all-be-all. Perhaps in a future stage of my life, I'll want it to be, but right now, I'm happy with where I am.

Here I am trying to do a T-stop. I can do those now.

Two years ago, I just started skating and was very "green" to skating. I tried out for one of the local leagues. I didn't make it, though I didn't imagine that I would. When there are twice as many skaters as there are positions, it's okay to be realistic about your odds. At this point, I was still struggling to stand up on skates and stop without running into something. I'm sure I looked like Bambi on ice. Make that a newborn Bambi on ice. Graceful I was not.



After the tryouts, those who made it got really into it and I started to look into other options. The recreational league I'm in now was just starting to form. Learning that they were going to practice on Sundays ruled it out for me. I was already committed to working at the Renaissance Festival and while I'm sure my friends would have made it possible for me to work there and do derby (which they ended up doing last year), I felt that I owed them and that it wouldn't work for me anyway due to my work schedule having a lot of Sunday commitments.

Then came my derby break-up and my anger at it. I didn't want to hear anything about derby because it was so frustrating. Once I finally started skating again (I wasn't ever stupid enough to get rid of everything just because of a bad experience), I realized that I loved skating too much to give it up and that I don't always like the people in derby. In fact, I sometimes just don't like people at all. People make a lot of noise and bother. But I'm doing a team sport, so that probably means I should get use to people. For the most part, I do like people. I simply don't like politics. Eventually I got into the rec league.

Last year I consider my blue year. I'd joined the Debs and one of our colors is blue. A lot has changed from the end of the first season to the end of this past season. When I joined Debs, I didn't want to get to know people. First of all, I assumed that they wouldn't like me as I'm not exactly normal. I was also afraid of judgement because I'd missed the first practice. Secondly, work kept me away from a lot of practices. I made a little over half of them but it's hard to connect with people when you don't see them that often. On top of that, I had no idea what to talk to people about. I wasn't really ready to get into derby hardcore again. There was more to life for me than just derby. I think I only made one bout that season so it wasn't even like I could talk about the latest game.

I'm in the gold dress. Notice how we have a table all to ourselves.

The fantastic thing was that I did get my confidence back and I was eventually able to open up to my fellow skaters. Due to where I was emotionally in my dating life, I do regret not being able to get closer during our year end party because I was too worried about my date feeling left out. Until later that evening, I was still worried about how others would view me and that I would somehow fall short of their expectation.



Thankfully that night, a dear friend managed to get across to me about how derby is about self. No one else can get you to try hard or even go to practice. You have to drive yourself to your goals in derby. Team mates will support you but should you get injured or simply stop going to practice, very few will track you down in the "real" world. If I hadn't witnessed this myself, I may not have believed it. From last fall to the spring, quite a few skaters left Debs for a variety of reasons. When my curiosity (and concern) got the better of me, I messaged a couple of them to find out if they were still in Debs (when you miss practices, it's hard to know who's there when you aren't). Neither of them were and both were surprised and touched that I'd reached out to them because no one else had.

Granted, these are their words and I don't know if others reached out to them or not but their reaction makes me think that they had been put on the back burner for some people. Why? Because they weren't visible.

After the last practice of this year, a group of use went to Dairy Queen for a post-practice ice cream (very tasty!). As some of us started back to our cars, there was a conversation about people who weren't around and what had happened to them. Most of the time, we all seemed to struggle with names of the people because they simply hadn't been around.

I know that this isn't the only side of derby. Derby is very gray because it's not just one thing. There were times that I had to miss practice and I'd get messages about being missed at practice. That meant more to me than those ladies probably realize. It meant that I hadn't been forgotten and that touched me.

I even won an award this year, the Energizer Bunny, for never stopping.

So I sit here now, two years after starting to skate and am pleased with where my life has gone. It's been an interesting path and there have been people who are no longer there beside me but there are so many more who are there with me. After re-watching a video from my drum corps, I remembered another truth I learned then. No matter what happens, if I join a league or not, I will always be a part of the Debs and the feelings and experiences I've had so far can never be taken away from me. They are real and mean more than any competition or tryout. While I may not be a real roller girl, I've certainly had some amazing experiences that no one can take away from me.

Debs at the year end party.