Part of your World

Hey, did you know that competitive bouting is SUPER FREAKING FUN? Yeah, well I didn't. I had never done it before. I had only played on home teams until last weekend. FoCo Girls Gone Derby invited the Naughty Pines from Laramie to come down for some daylight derby. I was being pretty flippant about the whole thing until my line took the track. It turns out that playing with other people is really intense. I guess that is what all the vets meant when they tried to prep us...

This is what my bout day schedule looked like last Saturday:

8:00am - Woke up, set up a grand buffet of fruits and veggies that I will graze on constantly throughout the day
8:15am - Showered, ate more
9:00am - Optometrist appointment: selected new reading glasses, showed no signs of glaucoma, bout-day nerves begin
10:30am- Home to continue eating, initiate anxiety apartment cleaning sequence
11:30am - Begin straightening hair, applying crazy bout day levels of make-up (while eating)
12:15pm- Realize that I will never have optimal levels of glitter on my face, hair, and eyes and that I should have left the house 5 minutes ago to be on time for set up.
12:30pm - Arrive at bout venue, Qdoba Events Center, and begin set up processes
1:00pm - Off-skates warm up: jogging, hopping, skipping, flailing of limbs, and dynamic stretching
1:15pm - Gear up and on-skates warm up
1:25pm - Meet my Respite Care buddy for intro
1:30pm - Intro time - Skated in with my buddy from Respite Care = AWESOMENESS. I teared up a little. Real talk.
1:45pm to 3:15pm- Game time!

Proof that I did something in the bout!
Whose green tights are those? That's right. MINE.
Photo By Gravee 2013

Though my Punchy Brewsters lost the bout 263-231, it was still amazing fun. The Naughty Pines have some really great players, and it was just... FUN. I mean, sure there were some times when I was really frustrated, and yes, we were down by a small margin for pretty much all of the bout  (by small margin, I mean it was neck and neck, we'd take a small lead and then give them a couple power jams and they'd be ahead by 40 points again) but it was crazy to play with people I have never met before. Women who had a completely different culture and take on the game than our team.

I think what is really sticking to my ribs about this is that I still get to have "first times" in derby. I am looking forward to my first RollerCon in 2014 (crossing fingers), my first competitive tournament, my first boutiversary (coming in September), and so much more that I can't even fathom yet. I feel like I am  somewhere between veteran and newbie in my derby career and I am really curious now about what else I don't know. I feel like my eyes have been opened to the fact that there is so much I don't know and I am reinvigorated by that. Not that I was getting big for muh britches or anything, but I was looking for something. I knew there had to be more than scrimmages and committee work, and low and behold, I have found it. I feel like Ariel in the Little Mermaid when she is in her chamber full of human things:

Look at this stuff
Isn't it neat?
Wouldn't you think my collection's complete?
Wouldn't you think I'm the girl
The girl who has everything?
Look at this trove
Treasures untold
How many wonders can one cavern hold?
Looking around here you think
Sure, she's got everything
I've got gadgets and gizmos a-plenty
I've got whozits and whatzits galore
You want thingamabobs?
I've got twenty!
But who cares?
No big deal
I want more

And I do. WANT MORE. Fortunately, I get to have more. I have skate tools, extra wheels, I can talk kneepads and strategy (a little bit) but I want more! I am going to my second competitive bout next month and it's a double header folks, all hands on deck! Bucket list item: travel bout, check!

Derby Love,
Mollytov Maguire