Sneaky Epiphanies

Sometimes you go looking for them - you might be confused about something or maybe you can't seem to find the missing piece that will make it all make sense. 
Then other times they sneak up on you.  
You're doing your everyday business and they tap you on the shoulder out of nowhere and rudely butt into your life. 
This was one of the second type.  
I was working through some chairpersony exec stuff on the computer when suddenly a big loud epiphany wrote itself in bold capitals across my brain....


IT'S ONLY A GAME.

Hmmm...whatever do you mean??


IT'S ONLY A GAME.


Are you sure? Are you sure it's not the reason for my existence?  

Nope.

Do you mean my life shouldn't revolve around this league? 

Nope. 

I don't need to pour my heart and soul into it so that it can run smoothly and happily and grow and become stronger and awesome-er and have a super duper venue of it's own and join WFTDA and play leagues from far away lands and host bootcamps taught by living legends and save the world from eternal damnation???!

Nope.  

But my leaguemates are the most amazing women and so much fun to be with and have taught me how to be part of a team and work together with people completely different than me.

Yep.

And my depression is so much better than it's ever been before and I'm so much fitter and stronger and healthier.  

Yep.

And I've learnt so much about myself and not giving up and facing my fears.


Yep.  
It is a funtastic, amazing, challenging, even life changing, game but still...... IT IS ONLY A GAME. 


She's right you know....it's only a game people.

High flying and hard hits.

"They hit so hard I actually pee-ed my pants a little" a teammate (who shall forever remain anonymous) admitted in the changing room at halftime.  Being a mum of three I'd learnt a long time ago that a little extra protection was always a good idea in this department but for other's this was a new lesson. 
Everyone had been taken by surprise by the relentlessness and power of the Pirate's blocks.  I still remember the stunned look on everyone's faces as they skated back to the bench after their first jam.  
Maybe taking on the Pirate City Rollers straight after a month derby holiday to recover from tournament wasn't a great idea in retrospect.  
They were only the oldest league outside of North America, they only had six years bouting experience to our one, they only had 5 members of Team New Zealand on their team.  
But how could we say no?? No matter what the scoreboard said in the end it was sure to be an amazing learning opportunity and we just couldn't turn it down!
It was a whirlwind trip but for me the promise of 24 hours child free had been the pot of gold at the end of the school holiday rainbow.  
Most of us grabbed the same flight up at lunchtime and not one of us pulled out the Skates on a Plane joke.  
I hate flying. A lot. I'm usually okay during the smooth bits but takeoff and landing have me knocking back the Rescue Remedy and doing some relaxation breathing (which for the record isn't actually that relaxing but it does give me something to focus on other than the fact I am in a huge chunk of metal in the sky).  
It was a rough flight - in the words of the pilot "It's not a good day to fly". We certainly challenged anyone's stereotype of the 'tough derby girl' though. Between my heavy breathing, cries of 'are we going to make it? are we going to die?' from my teammate next to me (who I offered to share my rescue remedy with and ended up squirting the dropper all over her face instead of in her mouth.....) and the vomiting across the aisle we were a sorry lot! Daroll as usual helped out with her favourite comforting line...."I can see the ground - if we crash now we'll still be sweet."  

Feeling rather invincible after surviving that I managed to completely avoid my usual prebout nerves - skating in the bout was guaranteed to be a more enjoyable experience than the flight to get there was.
After everyone got over their initial shock of how physical the opposition were we rallied with some bench chatter of 'we knew it would be hard' 'we need to remember to have fun' and 'just focus on making each jam better than the last'.  And we did - we made sure each jam was the best we could do and we didn't give up, even when their score hit the 300 mark while ours still sat around 50.  
And we had fun, so much fun! There were plenty of crazy moments from Warbow laughing like a madwoman because she was enjoying Pirate's hits so much, to Crash's flying leap that got her expelled from the game ('I was sure my legs could stretch that far!').  
I'm so proud of how we played.  I am so proud of all our jammers who were brave enough to take on that pack and I only hope that one day I will be that brave too.  
I am so proud of myself for willingly skating into hits from Terror Santana to save my jammer from taking them instead - if you'd told me a year ago (back when I was too scared to even do a knee fall) that I'd be doing that I would never have believed you.  Don't you just love how the 'derby you' can take on challenges you never even hoped you could in such a short time?
The Pirate's were great hosts and gracious victors and we had a blast.  Looking forward to hosting them in shakey Christchurch sometime next year - maybe we can keep that score difference to under 200 next time??!!