2007-11-02
No Jumping for No Reason
I'm not trying out for the traveling team.
This is a surprise to me, as I thought I would really dig going for it and seeing my progress in my sport and stuff.
Then I thought about how much more vacation time I would use for derby, how many nights I would come home from a late practice and not be able to fall asleep until the early hours of the morning, how I would have to tell Jill, "I can't come over and watch the baby while you nap because I have practice!", and how I would never be able to find time for planning a move or having a boyfriend.
I thought about how hard it was to get myself to the point where I felt like I was at the same level as the girls on my own, regular season championship team and how agonizing it was to suck for so long.
I didn't suck, really, but being new on my team is a lot like skipping a grade in school. They've just been doing it for so long and are so good at derby that the two of us who were new this season kind of had to jump into the cold watered deep-end and hope we knew how to tread water.
I thought about how major injuries occur during interleague play and how I don't want to be anymore crippled than I will likely already be when I'm 75.
I used to think, "Everybody hurts when they're old, you know? I want to hurt and have good stories."
Now I think that maybe I will hurt enough and that there's no reason to make it worse than it's already going to be.
I don't want to have to get x-rays or get so hurt that I have to miss out on my own season.
It would be an awesome experience to be on that team, and I now am confident enough in my skills to know that I would be a really solid addition to the team. I'd be a constant, reliable second-stringer.
But I want to be a first-stringer on my own team.
I want time for the gym and to continue with what I'm doing with Interval training and weight lifting.
Joining the travel team would mean that I would not have time to be at the gym the way I am now. Derby practice is so long and so intense that you have to have time to recover whereas at the gym, I can do 30 minutes at the treadmill and 30 minutes of lifting and be done - go home, watch TV, not be starving and also shape my body ion ways that derby doesn't allow.
Seriously, if my legs get any bigger, they are going to need their own zip codes.
Yeah.
In the plural.
I think I may feel some regret about this after the travel team rosters are announced, that I might feel a little sad knowing I could have been one of those girls on the list but at what price?
I had to counsel with my best friends, Jill and Chelsea to get there.
Chelsea said it's sort of like marathon training - she loved it but it was all-consuming. The planning and the eating and the fact that this one thing drove her schedule ALL THE TIME.
She reminded me that in my off-season, I am still spending about 7 hours on skates per week.
And she reminded me that that's a lot of hours.
Jill said that I seem to sound really good and that my reasoning didn't sound like justification to avoid something hard that I was afraid of. She also promised, out of the blue, that when I get down about not going for it, she will remind me of the sweet reasons I have for not wanting to do it and of all the things I saw myself doing instead of being on the travel team.
It's sort of weird because usually I am all for trying something, even if it's really hard.
Last night at practice we did this thing with jumping. Bags were laid down and we had to jump over them.
I almost cried, because it was so much of a fear for me.
One of my teammates was like, "What's the fear? Face-plant?"
"No."
"Is it the part leading up to the jump?"
"No."
Welllll???"
"It's the jump. It's the nano-second that my feet are not on the ground and knowing that I willingly removed them from terra firma. In a game or at a scrimmage, I can jump over an errant foot or body that might be in my way but to ask myself to lift both my feet off the ground at the same time for no good reason seems antithetical to who I am."
Given my delayed journey into adulthood, this was actually a comforting feeling to me.
It reinforced in me that I know myself and that I trust I can do hard things but that I do them with purpose and not willy nilly because I need to prove something to myself, or to anyone else.
Not jumping led me to realize that I don't need to put myself on that travel team. I don't need to remove my feet from the Earth for the chance to play a couple of jams in an interleague game or to be able to say that I made the team or for any other reason.
I am happy with who I am right now and with my feet on the track. I trust I can deal with an obstacle if I need to - I've done it a hundred times.
But there's no need to create obstacles and test myself in ways that I've already been tested or in ways that will mean I sacrifice my other comforts and other things that make me feel secure with my current happiness.
arizonasarah at 9:39 a.m.