When surviving is winning

Much as I'd love to be able to say that roller derby brings only good things into my life, this would be a lie.  It does bring good things: there are markable improvements in fitness, lots of new friends, passing milestones and feeling good about yourself.  Good things that happen in derby can carry over into the rest of your life.

Unfortunately this also means that what's going on in your life can carry over into derby.  And life, as we know, does not always go smoothly.




I'm struggling at work right now.  I don't quite know what happened, but lately I'm very anxious about my performance to the point where it's actually affecting my ability to work, which affects my performance, which affects my ability etcetera etcetera, ad infinitum...  This all came to a head last Friday when one particular event snapped my remaining self-esteem like a little twig, and all I wanted to do was go home, drink wine, and eat Ben & Jerrys.  It wasn't even real wine.  I don't like alcohol, so it was lite-wine, which is pathetic, and I drank it anyway.  Then I stayed up until 3am drawing, which I only do these days when I feel like whatever else has gone on has been a completely waste of the world's time.  I felt shaky all weekend.  My friend and my lovely housemate all listened to me freak out repeatedly, gave me various talking-to's and lots of cuddles, which I needed.

When I rolled up to skate on Sunday morning it was apparent to me that this wasn't going to be the day I made any major breakthroughs.

I refereed for the advanced team scrim, and struggled to focus or call the things I saw.  Everything felt confusing and unsure.  We did whips, and my balance was all wrong.  My derby stops were slow and nervous, like I'd regressed about a month.  We did laps, and I fell for the first time in a year.  I got back up, because you get back up, but I knew I was slower than usual.  The other skater had tapped out so I was skating alone, lap after lap.  I felt slower.  My strides weren't long or smooth enough.  I got 25-in-5, when I'd gotten 27 a fortnight ago.  For some people that's still a lot of laps, but for me now, looking to move up to the advanced team, that's the minimum I expect from myself and I barely made it.

This, all of this, is okay.
It's okay.

Sometimes you'll turn up to skate feeling at one with your wheels, the bravest, boldest, smartest skater on the track.  You'll bust through your plateaus, set new personal bests, level up your agility or power.  Those days are Challenge Days.  You'll feel like a million dollars.

Sometimes you'll turn up tired.  It may not be your fault; stuff happened while you were away.  Life is jumping on your face while kicking you in the ass, and your mental fortitude is all shot to bits.  You're sad, and you hurt, and you don't have a lot to give.  You give it anyway, and it doesn't look like a lot, even to you.  You comfort yourself by doing the basic things you know you can manage; your plough, your glide.  You try the rest of it, just to remind yourself how.  You pray they don't ask you to jump any cones (they don't, thank heavens).  You smile at people who talk to you because that is socially appropriate.  You de-kit.  You go home.  The whole day feels like a write-off.

These are Consolidation Days.  Don't discount them.  A woman named Christine Miserandino came up with this thing called Spoon Theory, which is a way of describing the limited energy resources you have when you're suffering from Lupus.  Now, I am not suffering from Lupus.  Statistically, it's unlikely that you are either.  I'm not trying to claim that being miserable is equivalent to a lifelong illness.  But Spoon Theory is a really good way of talking about a lot of things that drain people.  Kids.  Physical and/or Mental Illness.  Work.  Money.  Relationships.  We all have limited resources in some way, some of us moreso than others, all at different times.

There will be times when you have all the spoons.  Billions of spoons.  You could skate forever.  Good!  Great!  Enjoy it!

There will be times when you have three.  Do what you can.  Be kind to yourself.  Three-spoon level skating when you've only got three spoons to start with is still giving 100%.

Sometimes just surviving is actually winning.