Oh, hey! I quit :)

I'm getting pretty good at this whole quitting thing...I quit my team and my league as a skater a few weeks before we had our amazing debut at the new venue. After some long derby therapy with visiting friends, I gave tons of thought to why I was still hanging in there, and decided it was for all the wrong reasons. So I quit. It was sad, scary, and hard, but the immense and overwhelming relief that followed was amazing! It was a good decision, one I'm living to enjoy.

I had no idea how much I was anxious over getting injured again, now that my new career is getting closer. I worried about it all day, every day, without even being terribly conscious of it. It felt like I lost 100 pounds to unburden myself of the fear of getting hurt - it felt so imminent. (I've suffered 2 knee injuries that I refused to have surgery for...each knee is damaged). I was also toughing my way through a rotator cuff tear that I didn't want to acknowledge - not very healthy stuff. Worse was the emotional game I set up for myself about not showing up enough. Feeling guilty for all the times I just couldn't be at practice or a fundraiser or promotions. Feeling like I was constantly letting people down.

The big girl pants part is realizing that most of my fear stemmed from knowing I was not training hard enough to compete with some of the fierce, amazing, world class skaters on this league in the home season. It felt like a recipe for disaster, in my older, out of shape body. When I do things, I like to excel at them, and I created lots of bad feelings around not being able to make enough time to train well, and really enjoy playing.

My league, my team, and our captain require very little of me - it's not like there's an attendance policy here :) It's just that I know my body and my self well enough to know that half - assing things isn't good for me. I lost the spark and the drive. For skating derby, anyway. I just couldn't find the motivation to keep plugging away at it until it didn't suck anymore.

So, what next? Well, my love of the sport is still as strong as ever, so I contribute to DNN when I can, and we're the hospitality crew for visiting teams this season, chez Less - Reynolds. We had a really great time helping the league host San Diego last month, and we get to do it again for Rat City this weekend. It's good times - being able to still enjoy derby without the stress! I've also given some thought to writing a book, instead of trying to push, prod and coddle several other derby notables into doing it. We'll see what happens. I'm not someone who's going to ref or start a rec league, or coach Junior Derby - I thought about those things, and my heart just really isn't in it.

For now I've been really content to do better at the rest of my life - I came out of this last semester with a totally resurrected GPA, and some exciting new interests that look like they're turning into new work I can feel really excited about. We're having lots of good family time, and I'm still very much connected to many derby friends. I also got to try my hand at bench coaching my home team at the season opener - it was fun and new! It was just a try, and I don't know if I'll be any good at it, but it was a good time, because I love those girls so much. They won a great game, and everyone did an amazing job on the track!

The leaving was very anticlimactic, and felt right. New adventures to come, always! Derby love is forever, no matter how burned out you are, I'm convinced.