Finding the match to light the spark

This past month is the longest I've gone without derby training and for ONCE it wasn't injury related! I've had two weddings to go to, playing tour guide for my relo's from Germany plus I managed to pick up a cold in between. I don't regret any of it (except for getting sick) and would do it all again it just made for a manic month which ended up messing me up for a while that I've had to make changes both in and outside of derby.

For year's I've overfilled my life whether it be working two jobs and going to TAFE at night or not having a single night free during the week that whenever I've stopped to have a break even just for a few days I've gotten sick because my body is used to going 100% all the time. No surprise it happened again this time when I took a week off work to show my relo's the sight's of Sydney. I can't do this anymore, it's not healthy so I've had to re-organise my life to have some spare time but still feel like I've been productive.

One of my major decisions was to go on an indefinate hiatus from doing bout write up's for Roller Derby AU. I've already spoken to Ivy who is in charge and she's cool with it. Truth is they take up a shit load of my time during the week when I work on them and it was starting to get to the stage where I missed the experience of being able to just watch a bout and go ape shit cheering on from the sidelines instead of making sure I got down as much info as I could for the write up. I would like to finish up on covering the WIRD double header this Saturday because it would allow me to do my first write up on my fellow HARDies bouting as a team but then it would mean that the next bout I go to as a fan would be the Smashleys vs Hellcats bout next week so that ties it up nicely! At the very least I'd like to be able to cheer on both HARD and NRDL (if they're participating) at the ERRD finals in October. I will go back to doing write up's I just don't know when at this stage.

The longer this last month went on the more I found myself going down a slippery slope of negativity. Sure some of it was down to sickness, and the longer my routine went out the window and I could feel the weight coming back on, the more lost at sea I felt. There were times where I'd look at that monster Jilla pic and think godammit I'm never going to get to bouting level because I was missing out on training then I got the news last week that pretty much extinguished whatever spark I had left when my grandmother said that the doctor's told her they found a spot on her lung during her latest x-ray exam. My family is the most important thing to me which is highlighted by the tattoo on my left arm so when I heard the news the panic set in for me. My grandmother has had cancer twice in her life and pretty much has her own pharmacy in her room from all the pills she consumes. So now comes the nervous wait to see what the tests will show up. By last Friday I was struggling to get my head above a sea of negativity and derby felt like a million miles away BUT then...

I ended up going to the CCRG bout last Saturday night and something just changed inside me. I saw some of my team mates for the first time in weeks and even though I was doing reporting duties and taking down a shit load of notes I had an absolute ball. The merby bout killed me I was in absolute stitches and the Astro Naughties vs Voodoo Dollies was an absolute nail biter and tense. Don't get me wrong I laughed a lot when my relo's were here but it was something different at the bout on Saturday night, it was like I found the match to light the spark back up that was missing this past month.

It's back to training again this Friday and I know I'll suck arse because I haven't skated for a while and my fitness levels went backwards fast but dammit I'm really looking forward to it :)