The Woman of my Dreams

So, I went to the dentist last weekend. I had a cavity that needed filling and a cleaning. I am not usually the type of person who gets uptight about that kind of thing. I am the "fake it until you make it" kind of gal, the one who smiles like she means it, even when she doesn't, because eventually she will. Chalk it up to lessons learned, but I have found that smiling and laughing even though I don't mean it is a lot easier than telling people about all the dark, nasty, shit that permeates most of my thoughts. Anyway, for whatever reason, I was a little nervous about this visit and I decided that liquid courage wasn't in the cards for a 10am dentist's appointment, so what did I do? Put on my Cinderhellas jersey. Seriously. And the socks that say "Bad Ass" with arrows that point upward. I wore derby gear to the appointment and it worked out pretty well for me.

The dentist and nurses were amazed with my ability to grin and bear it, to take their shenanigans in stride, and laugh when I just wanted to scream "Get your effing hands out of my mouth!" Needless to say, the appointment went fine, my pearly whites are a bit pearlier than they were the week before and I felt like a rockstar. I thought to myself about how I was learning to use my on the track confidence to take care of muh BIDness off the track. How else did I parlay this new found knowledge of using derby in my regular life? Well, Mr. Maguire didn't appreciate my "That's a major" comments in the kitchen, but it did help when I was making a big presentation at work I successfully hyped myself up by thinking "You've got this Molly!" Since when did my inner monologue make the switch? It changed from the name I was given to the name I had chosen. Wow.

I have always been a  person who thinks that the words we choose to say (or not say) speak volumes for us. I remember the moment I realized that I no longer thought of myself as a girl and that I thought of myself as a woman instead, that my monologue had changed. In my own head, when I thought about myself I wasn't thinking "I am a pretty awesome girl" and I had made a full time change in my head to "I am a really kick-ass woman." This realization made me carry myself a little better and it was the leap that gave me confidence to be the kind of woman who does roller derby.

Last week's blog from the Original Skankster really made me think not just about investing in myself for the future, but also that the investments of my youth had become returns in the present day. Not punishing myself for the mistakes of the past was the best choice I have ever made. It has allowed me to be older and wiser but not infallible. I get to be a woman of distinction, a woman who knows better (but doesn't always act that way), and most of all the woman of my dreams.

I look back on the difference between who I was at 20 and who I am at 30 and I am downright proud of some of my accomplishments. The ones that make me puff up like a little peacock are not the ones that are sitting on my parents mantle. There wasn't a picture to mark those occasions, it was just the fact that I knew that I could do more. I could move to a foreign country full of strangers. Or, that I could survive and THRIVE after the worst heartbreak I had ever known. I do wonder what the next decade will bring and if the changes that I will see in myself between 30 and 40 will be as dramatic but one can only hope. I am, after all, a work in progress. Roller derby has been an EXCELLENT tool to sculpt me into the woman I want to be; the kind of woman that kids I don't yet have will be proud of.

Here's to doing more than hoping I will be that woman. Tonight, a raise a glass in honor of the girl that was, the woman that is, and the woman I have yet to become.

Derby Love,
Mollytov Maguire