Be Like Mike

I've been stuck in this rut lately, where I believed that life was a thing that just happened to me, not a thing that I  could get out and take control of, not a place where I could make things happen. I would lie back and think of England, only England was my entire existence, the whole universe.

It hasn't been a fun year, to say the least.

But I'm snapping out of it. Slowly but (hopefully) surely, I'm pushing myself, going out, doing things that make me happy, making things happen that make me a more complete, better person.

To be a painter, you must paint. To be a writer, you must write. To be a derby girl, you must strap stinky pads on, face down the world's dirtiest track, and skate and black and jam and turn left and fall down, and do it over and over and over again. Fill the track up with your booty blocks, your rage, your passion, your unquenchable desire to be Suzy Hotrod and Amanda Jamitinya and Carmen Getsome, all at once, even if it's only for a nanosecond.

And if I can do those things, face down my fears of getting hit and not hitting hard enough, of getting hurt and not getting back up, of not making it through the pack or not chasing down the jammer, then maybe, just maybe, I can face the world, too.