Starting over

My baby is growing up –and so am I, I hope…

Right after getting back from RollerCon, night fell upon my Derby Life. Being founder and president of a starting league –we just finished our first season- was no longer a challenge I was willing to take on. It was something I started to loathe. It sucked up time, effort and energy and all I felt I got back was complaints, frustration and stress. My body started to protest as well. Heavily. I lost sleep, got major back-, neck- and headaches and gained a pound or 20 in a matter of weeks.

I tried to find comfort in food, television and naps, but all it did was make me feel worse. I even went to see my physician, but he just gave me a huge stash of valium. Right. Valium, to me, who won’t even take ibuprofen unless there is a limb falling off of my body. But I was at wits end, and sleep deprived to the point where I started hallucinating, so I took one and went to bed.

Ever slept while having a panic attack and breathing problems? It’s HELL. I had the scariest dreams ever and woke up in a sweat wanting to never sleep again. Long story short; that was the last of them pills I’ll ever be taking.

I needed to get out of this, snap out, get back to normal, start enjoying things again. Most of all I longed to enjoy derby again. But my body ached and my morale had left me. I went to see my physical therapist who basically told me I had cramped up in every possible way, meanwhile damaging my spine and pelvis, and that, while she would try to get me back in shape I needed to address my problems, for this was all caused by my stress. Great. I knew that, I just didn’t know how. Meanwhile I had her bend and slap the bejeezus out of me in order to get back to the point where I could at least walk without pain.

During summer break, my league had set up some summer clinics, a few of which I had volunteered to coach. I dreaded them. But I am a good girl, so I did my preparations and dragged myself to the first one.

And I guess it was there that I realized why I had agreed to throw my life away and marry derby almost a year ago now. There were a lot of new girls who had just joined our Fresh Meat group, some two weeks before summer break. And their hunger, enthusiasm and joy made me remember mine. And made me remember that if anything, I could give them what they were after; Derby Love.

So instead of kissing derby goodbye forever –which I had secretly decided on, while eating a tub of Ben & Jerry’s some days earlier – I decided to welcome her back in my life. But not unconditionally. I needed to see my baby, this league, as it was; an adolescent growing to be a beautiful lady, and treat her as such. I needed her to take responsibility, but she needed to get some in order to do that. I needed to treat her with respect and welcome the friends she had made in her first year.

So I started to really delegate, not just on paper, but for real. Over the past few weeks I’ve been carrying the binders, reports and other paraphernalia I had hoarded in my house towards new homes and new moms and dads. It was a relief. I was glad to see that there were others that cared for my baby as much as I did. Today I finished cleaning out the digital derby mess I made, and tomorrow the last of my burden will be mailed to their rightful new owners.

So now it is time to take a good thorough look at me. The stress may have been taken care of, but the body is very much out of shape. So after this weekend (I could never start anything on a Thursday, that just feels wrong) I am back in the gym, on the track and in the physical therapists hands. I am back to working my ass into those booty shorts, and back on my quest to become an athlete, and yes I am close to forty. So what?

With derby, I can.