Will Work for Swords

It's kind of funny how much your mindset can affect the things you do. I have to admit that I approached this past weekend with a fair amount of dread, at first: on Saturday, I had a photoshoot, a birthday get-together to go to, and then Day 1 of Travel Team tryouts (ack!), and then what could have potentially been two MORE birthday parties. Then, Sunday kicked off with Day 2 of TT tryouts, followed by a 5-hour shift at the shop I'm now working for. It all sounded very intimidating and exhausting, especially after what was a pretty high-pressure workweek.

But, I turned in nice and early on Friday, and when I woke up on Saturday, I thought, "you know what, I'll go and do all the things, and everything will be fine. I can make it through the weekend, no matter what."

The photoshoot turned out much lower-key than I built it up to be in my head, and involved one of my favorite makeup artists, and I really enjoyed working with our subject for the afternoon. On the way to Birthday #1, I realized that I'd be watching Star Trek and eating grilled cheese sandwiches with my best bros, and honestly, you can't get a much more comforting activity than that, for me. I wish I could've stayed longer, but it was just the thing.

I got to TT tryouts, and wanted to throw up a little, at first. Then I remembered that, hey, we'd done all of these drills at Thursday practice, and I did just fine at them, so I should just calm down and do the thing, and let the chips call where they may. Some skills didn't click quite as well as I wanted them to, but others went better than I expected.

Then, I went to the lower-key of the two birthday party options (well, if you can call karaoke "low-key," but believe you me, it was definitely the lesser of the two evils), had a couple of drinks to unwind, had a hell of a lot of fun singing my head off, and wound up staying out very late. I fell asleep thinking that I'd probably regret staying up so late when I had to get up for Day 2 of tryouts, but I told myself it'd be fine. I've played roller derby with a hangover, and I've played derby on not-much sleep before. I know what I'm doing.

So, I got up this morning, dragged myself away from bed, put coffee and a breakfast sandwich into my face, and scrimmaged with some of the best skaters in the world. It was not perfect, but it never is. But, I communicated a lot (which I'm normally not-so-great at, being a quieter person in genera), and had some great teamwork moments.

And then I got to my shift at the shop, did a stellar job of being extra-nice to people and keeping things tidy for the first 90-or-so minutes, and then my phone blew up with congratulatory texts, because I MADE TRAVEL TEAM. ACK! :D!!!!! I'm on the B-Team, but when that puts you among the Top 30 skaters in one of the top-ranked leagues in the world, the B-Team is definitely no small potatoes.

I may or may not have, quite literally, jumped up and down in the middle of the (fortunately, empty, at the time) shop, when that happened. XD

Anyhoo, I'm closing up shop now, and I'm basically feeling like I won the entire weekend. Granted, I'm bloody exhausted, but I can only imagine how things might've gone if I hadn't shouted down the anxiety demons with calmness and positivity.

Can't complain. Not even a little. :)

As previously noted, my derby progress seems to be on the upswing again, and that's pretty excellent. Last night, after having struggled mightily with the 50-Lap Killer since I came onto Fresh Meat, I was making it my bitch, up until my right shoelace came untied and I was forced to stop and re-tie it. I could've easily kept going, though, and I didn't have to drop to the inside again until we switched to reverse direction skating. That was a HUGE victory, and I'm feeling less frustrated and adrift than I did even one or two weeks ago.

Still, if you've read my LJ or talked to me at all about derby in recent months, you know that I've gone back and forth about quitting on at least a semi-regular basis. In fact, I had an emotional moment just yesterday, where I damned near turned the car around and went home instead of going to practice. (good thing I didn't, because I later learned that the high emotions were due to, ahem, other factors) It's been an up-and-down journey, and only recently have things started to level out for me to a point where I feel like I can even remotely deal with what's on my plate.

What's been more strange and emotionally confusing, over the past couple of weeks, is watching the Fresh Meat ranks waver and begin to thin out. A wave of the flu is making the rounds on the team. Status updates go by on Facebook after almost every practice, lamenting soreness, pain, and having had a "bad skate day." It's becoming rare to see a week go by without at least one person breaking down into tears after practice, due to the sheer frustration of it all. I haven't been one of those people yet, but I've been damned close.

Several Freshies have been parked on the bleachers during practice, as of late, because they've sustained minor injuries and need to take a few practices off. Some have stepped down entirely, because they've injured themselves badly enough to require a longer break from skating, or even surgery. Others have stepped down for their own undisclosed reasons, and it's the ladies in that latter group that surprise me the most: some of them were skating well and never seemed to be struggling, but apparently, they were, on some level that wasn't so easy to see on the surface.

Honestly, I feel pretty weird each time I look on the forum and see a post that reads, "_________ has stepped down from Fresh Meat." I do find myself a little amazed that I'm still there, when other, better skaters have fallen by the wayside, and I'm proud of myself for that, but it also feels strangely unjust to me. Why am I still flailing around on the squad, while other people with more talent and ability are leaving? Still, more than anything, I'm just sad for each of them, and curious about what made them break, what was the final straw for them.

It's times like this when the question of when to persist, and when to walk away weighs heavily on my mind. I've been turning it over in my head for weeks, with regard to my own commitments, and I wonder what motivates some of us to keep going, when others stop. We've all heard plenty of inspirational tales in our lives about people who've triumphed in the face of adversity, and it does take an incredible amount of grit and determination to do that. The harder lesson to learn, however--one that I'm still in the process of learning, myself--is to know when it's okay to quit, or even to take a step back.

There's a balance between quitting too easily and pushing too hard, and it's hard to find. It's possible to give up too early, because you think you can't overcome a problem, when it simply requires more effort than you originally expected. It's also possible to push too hard, and break yourself emotionally with stress, or physically with injury. The unfortunate thing is, there's no good way to tell someone which situation they're in, or what battles are worth fighting, because each battle is fought for different reasons, different benefits.

It's hard to accept that something you truly want for yourself may not be what you need right now. It's hard to accept that it may not be possible, within the framework of your life. It's hard to make yourself stop training right now, so you can rebuild and come back stronger later. It's hard to understand that a thing that's been part of your life for years might be something you've grown out of. It's hard to tell yourself that you may have taken on more than you, or any human being, can possibly manage. It's hard to realize that something that used to make you happy isn't making you so happy anymore. It's hard to accept that quitting now does not mean quitting forever.

It's a difficult call to make. If we're lucky, we'll eventually learn how to make the right one.

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Oh, and in case you're wondering, part of my solution goes into effect tonight: I'm quitting wushu demo team and scaling down to just the regular classes. This means I won't be competing this year, which is something I'm strangely okay with.

The more I think about the decision, the more at peace I am with it, so hey, good on me.

Okay. There's a post somewhere in this squishy mass of brain matter, I'm positive.

...okay, maybe not. I think all you're getting out of me is a list. Blame absinthe. Or Canada.

• Killer Burger was pretty killer, all right. It was a peanut butter, bacon, and pickle burger, and I think the peanut sauce was a bit too sweet to make the experience perfect, but I ate the whole damned thing and I'm not the least bit sorry. The PB and pickle flavors actually came together nicely, but there were times when I nearly forgot there was bacon on the burger. Something seems a bit wrong with that.
• I'm not sure what got into me before derby practice on Saturday, but I went in with my proverbial guns ablaze. It was exhausting from an endurance standpoint, and I fell down more than a few times, but I was on the attack, mentally. I'm tempted to say it was the best practice in ages, but there've been quite a few good ones, as of late. And! I may have the opportunity to skate with the flat track league in LA, while I'm there. This is happy-making.
• Yes, absinthe is serious business. I'm making a point of noting this, on the off chance that I might actually remember it in the future. You know, as opposed to finding myself shaking my fist at the heavens again several months from now, when another absinthe-related hangover cracks me upside the head.
• That said, it *was* a pretty excellent party, so even though my recollections are somewhat fuzzy, I dare say? WORTH IT. :)
• Last night kicked off my first foray into the WoD, through a game of Demon: The Fallen. I always seem to fall back on making useful characters--yeah, I've spent too much time around deliciously creative D20 min/maxers--so playing in a game where there's a stronger storytelling aspect is going to be a nice change of pace. I was also hideously unprepared for the session, so figuring out who my character is via flailing around senselessly was pretty damned amusing.
• Work-wise, editing has been grueling, but it's going more quickly than expected, thank jeebus.

There are other things worth noting, too, but I'm reserving comment on those until I actually figure out what in god's name is going on. XD

Okay, I think my next post is required to A) contain actual paragraphs, and B) not contain bullet points. I can handle that, right?

I was unexpectedly sucked into looking over old LJ entries from this time last year, and it has served a much-needed reminder that things were so, SO much worse, even just one year ago. And that's not to mention the years that came before it. There are certainly a couple of things that hurt right now... but there's much, much more to be hopeful for.

Thanks, internet. I kind of needed that today.