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Sunday, November 9, 2014

November ramblings

One entry in October. I pretty much fail at this whole blogging thing. Mostly because it tends to slips my mind that I should write. Maybe I will try to start setting aside time each week or every few days or something and put it on my calendar.

So I got back to my derby fitness group like I said I would and did my weight lifting research and two weeks into derby I fell and sprained my knee rather badly. I am still unable to walk without crutches for the most part and certainly can't skate or exercise really. I find it to be incredibly frustrating. And if I can't walk then I struggle even with simpler tasks like standing to cook or do dishes or get around the store. And that makes me feel helpless and I utterly detest feeling helpless.

And the knee injury has caused problems for me at work as there have been several missed days due to appointments and whatnot in addition to the mental strain this is causing which is also problematic. I have gotten so that I shake like a chihauhua a lot lately and I cannot find a concrete reason so I starting to think it is all just stress related and I feel like the stressors  I am dealing with are things that I cannot do much about. Or if they are things I can solve I will simply handle thm only to have new problems pop up in their place. If anyone wants to give me a couple grand in cash for my birthday coming up that would probably greatly alleviate some of my stress though.

I think one good thing that is coming of all m y stress though is that I am getting a lot of crochet done because it is one thing that quiets my hands so they don't shake so bad. Today, even typing is hard, but I am trying to slow down so I don't make mistakes and I am proofreading pretty closely as well so I can make needed corrections. Double letters seem to be my biggest downfall right now so don't mind an extra letter here or there if I do not catch it.

I am mostly just rambling now and not sure what there is to say. I don't want to rehash all the random things that are bugging me and the crochet project I am working on is a Christmas gift and since I'm not certain of my readership I won't say much about it, of course. I will be 30 soon and it amazes me that so many of my friends who have turned or are about to turn 30 are having such issues with the idea. Age is nothing more than a number. Sure, sometimes I have bad days where I feel awful, but often enough I have days where I forget that I'm not 25 still. *shrug* Despite my mental health issues and my current knee injury I'm not doing too bad, although I could stand some weight loss. And as soon as I can do so it is on the agenda for sure. At the rate my knee is healing I don't expect to be able to play roller derby next season as much as I would like to be able to do so and recognizing and accepting that seems to have been good for me. I think when I am cleared to workout again I will get back to the gym and back to the derby fitness group and focus on that for a bit. If I can do more then I will, but I am not going to push so hard that I risk reinjuring my knee. That just seems like a poor plan on my part.

The weather is turning cold and snowy already and I am wishing I could have just another month of fall. I'm not ready for snow. Granted, I am never ready for snow. And JD keeps threatening to throw me in a snowbank. Not cool. Well...cold, but whatever. I hate snow. That's never going to change. And since I am running out of odds and ends to prattle on about I think I will go back to my crochet. Or maybe take a nap. I am still tired even after plenty of sleep and I just feel kind of meh.

Thursday, October 9, 2014

Hello Fall

So I absolutely skipped September. I was finishing up contrac hours for the first half of the month, as well as finishing out the season with my derby team as bench coach and may or may not have had time to think. When all of that was over i just needed to decompress and take some time to be with JD so we could talk and be together and we ended up growing a lot, even if some of our talks were stressful (because I am bad at talking.)

Now we are in COtober and the month started off a little nuts when JD woke me up at 730AM on a Saturday morning to tell me that I could not set foot in our bathroom. There was a swarm of European Hornets buzzing around. I peeked in the door and definitely agreed that I was not setting foot in the place. And we called the landlord, who called an exterminator. Several days later the bugs are mostly completely gone and I feel almost safe taking a shower. So that is good news after the crazy that was Bug War 3.

The bad for me is that I am struggling again with a nasty toothache because I was hoping that I could ignore it and it would go away. No such luck, however, and I am going to have to suck it up and call the dentist's office. I should probably do it tomorrow, but you know...avoiding things I don't wanna do is something I am really good at. JD helps me be better though because he isn't afraid to push me, no matter what the "thing" is.

Yesterday for example, I was really freaking out because of a new workout that I was going to be starting that lets me combine exercise with roller derby and is really awesome since I have gotten really out of shape since my skating days. Mind you, I was never in the best shape to begin with. But anyway, my anxiety was tripping me up and giving me fits and JD looks me dead in the face and tells me that I am going to do this, that I need to do this. Not because he wants me to lose weight or get in shape or anything. He wants me to exercise more simply so that my back will get a good stretch and the muscles will get used and I will have less back pain as a result. When I got home last night he poked at my back muscles and pronounced them to feel like "overproofed bread dough." And my back felt way better.

Even beyond that one single benefit though, he pushses me to go. Not because I am the best, not because I want to play roller derby again competitively, again, not because he thinks I'm fat or unattractive, or out of shape, although I would call myself at least two of those things and the fact that I don't call myself all three says that I have come a long way. But I am rambling as ususal. JD asked me last night, "Why are you going?" And I wasn't sure what he meant. He explained it to me that I was going to lace up my skates and play roller derby and exercise with a group of people of mixed skill level to be better. And not for any other reason. And that I was going to do it for me. Not for anyone else.

And that really stuck with me. Later on at the event another skater who has known me for several years told me essentially the same thing and said that I had done well (she knows how out of shape I let myself get) and encouraged me to keep pushing and do it for me. So hearing from both the most important man in my life who isn't my father and from someone that I call a friend was really good for me I think.

Today I am researching proper weightlifting form and technique and I will start that maybe this weekend when I don't feel like I have been hit by a truck with a license plate that say RLRDBY. It's my own fault though...skating til I thought my legs were gonna give out, stopping to rest when I had no choice, and then skating some more. I don't have a stubborn bone in my body. Not at all. :)

And that has been my skipped September and my early October. Hopefully I will keep up with my writing more, but I am also back on a crochet kick (which also mad me forget September) and I have a project I am working on now that I want to get done and then I will start making some Christmas gifts that I can hopefully complete quickly. But now...dinner because my man can cook!!!

Tuesday, August 26, 2014

Change, Growth, Progress, Hope

I have been really anxious for the last several days and I had some trouble pinpointing exactly why. It is incredibly frustrating and I am not sure what the cause may be or if I need to look at making adjustments to my medication. I still frequently wish that I could just be normal and not have to struggle with this, but that just doesn’t seem like it is going to happen. For better, for worse, for the rest of my life I will fight with my mental illness.

But suddenly that does seem quite so bad anymore. JD and I both had a rough weekend and it resulted is some depression and anxiety on both our parts. That led to us having some more long, honest talks and it is amazing the things we can learn just by doing so. Communication is always something I have been kind of awful at (at least if I am having a face to face conversation) but I have been forced to get better if I want this relationship to work. And I do very much.  So I am trying. And we are growing together as individuals and as a couple. It is absolutely wonderful to be perfectly honest.
And I learned something that I should have already known, but because it wasn’t something I had ever really experienced before in my entire life I missed it completely. It was literally something that is just integral to our relationship and I couldn’t see it or feel it happening all around me. It was so glaringly obvious that even JD agreed with my assessment of my own stupidity on the specific matter. He doesn’t really think I am stupid, of course, but for him to have agreed with me even a little shows  just how big of a deal this is for me and for us.

Additionally, I am coming up on the end of my 2nd AmeriCorps term and have been looking for a job where I can keep learning and growing as a professional. That doesn’t mean that I am definitely leaving where I am at, but I do have an interview at another local company tomorrow that I am a bit nervous about.  I have been doing some prep work for it and trying to come up with some good answers to wide a variety of questions that I may be asked and I am going to see what questions I might want answered as well. It is important to me that I do well on this interview even if I do not get the job.
The 2014 season for my local derby league is coming to our close and after our final bout we will have a significant amount of time off. I am not sure what exactly I am going to do about staying involved next season as there has been some drama that I just don’t want to have to deal with if it continues. Also, I am still not in shape to skate, although I would have quite some time to work on it in the off season. And I am seeing where some of our retired skaters may be making a return to the track as well so I am interested how that goes since that could influence my decision. Of course, having a job where I can afford to pay dues is also going to influence my decision so we will have to see how things go.

I obviously can’t tell the future and I do not know how things will go, but right now I am very hopeful that life will only keep getting better. I am feeling secure enough to really, really take a good long hard look at how my life is going to go with JD in it. I have never doubted that he would leave me, but I had fears that I wasn’t good enough or that I asked for too much from him and since this weekend those fears have been greatly allayed. And that lifts a weight off of my shoulders that I didn’t even quite realize was there.

But despite my mental health issues and my body issues and everything else that I stress over and worry about, I feel like I am starting to grow and change and improve again as a person and I haven’t felt that way in a long time and it is a good feeling. I know that I will have bad days where I don’t make any progress and I may even lose some ground, but I am still fighting for the good days to outnumber the bad and I think I will get there eventually.

Wednesday, August 13, 2014

Thoughts on Expose with Jes Baker and Liora K

So I have been trying to learn to love myself after having gained roughly 75-100 pounds. And it has been very difficult for me. I have always struggled with my body image and gaining a lot of weight has only made those issues worse. I will allow, however, that having a wonderful man who loves me for me and not for what I look like, who makes no judgments about my body, does help more than I can explain. Even if I have to remind myself that it is OK for him to love me the way I am because he sees me far differently than I see myself. I frequently wish that I could see myself the way that he sees me. That would be incredibly different and probably really helpful for my self-image.

I have also been following Jes Baker of www.themilitantbaker.com and working on leaning my own #bodylove as well as semi keeping up with Whitney Way Thore and the No BS campaign (http://nobodyshame.com/) Hopefully being able to follow these two amazing women and see how they are successful regardless of their size and how they love themselves (again) regardlss of their size) will help me as I keep trying to accept and love my body. I am still hoping to get back into the gym once I my life settles down a bit, but whether I do or I don't, I still want to learn to love me for me.

The latest offering from Jes Baker is linked below and it is a photo project that she has done with Liora K called Expose: Shedding Light on Collective Beauty It made me stop and think for a moment about my body and how I feel about it and wonder if I would have been brave enough to have gone and posed in my underwear with almost 100 other people. And the answer was a definite no.

Then, I thoguht a little harder about it and I became aware that 100 pounds/two years ago I would have probably done this. I might have been anxoius about it or worried or nervous or whatever, but I would have done it. And I would have done it with pizzazz if not style. And now I wonder, what changed? Is it simply the weight gain? And why would I have done it before when I had no one to tell me I was fabulous, but I won't do it now, when I have that someone in my corner? I really don't have an answer for these questions right now. Perhaps I will at some point. But I hope that someone, anyone sees this and is moved by it. And if you are that someone and you want to reach out to another person who struggles, feel free.

I can find beauty in anyone that I see. Except myself. And the women of Expose are beautiful. Every single one of them. But I cannot see myself in them.





Summer update

So I haven't been doing a super great job at keping up with my tumblr that is supposed to help my body issues (that is turning into a ex positive tumblr) and I have been just as bad at keeping up with my writing on here.

Lots of hours at the office, plus derby has ben pretty tiring. And being back into derby and dealing with the drama and whatnot has also been rather tiring. I am thinking about walking away again, but it just breaks my hert to leave it. At the same time I don't know if I can keep dealing with it. i just want to be part of a league/team where I can skate and play derby and promote and not have all the crazy shit that goes on. I understand that there is always drama, but if eveyone who helps out or is involved could just be treated decently, regadless of their sex/gender/whatever that would be great.

Anyway, I am still working quite a bit, no gym, and I am on track to make my contract even though I was out yesterday with JD for a dr appointment and I was out today because I just could NOT function when I got up this morning. I was shaky and sick feeling and had not slept well enough to have driven at all. And I knew that if I slept I was not going to wake up in any sort of time to make it to the office. So I emailed the boss and went back to bed. I woke up about 330pm. Tomorrow I am off because we are supposed to go stargazing tonight and I knew that I would be up late. But I may have misjudged the peak of the meteor shower (it might have been last night) and we wouldn't have seen anything anyway because STORMS. We had some power outage issues and JD thought his monitor was friend, but it does not appear to have been since he is currently using it. He did just mention to me that it is damanged from the storm, but not dead...yet. So hopefully we can find a way to get him a new monitor, but I know how difficult he can be about things like this and I am going to try very hard not to push him because it just stresses him out. And we don't need that.

Especially not since we have both been sick. I got a cold, he caught my cold, and I think it is turning into pneumonia for him. Not fun. And he is having some dental issues that are miserable because toothaches suck. That is out life in a nutshell. Oh...and we also celebrate two years this week. We dubbed the 12th as being our anniversary, but it could basicaly be the 13th as well because we went stargazing on our first date (hence the reason for trying to catch the Perseids shower every year.) But yeah...life goes on. I will finish my contract and either stay where I am or get my ass in gear and find a new job ASAP. And I don't know which yet, but I need to hurry up and figure it out because my contract ends next month. But my own mental health and whatnot has made me procrastinate somewhat. I wish I could be normal and boring and not have these issues. Mental illness sucks.

Tuesday, June 3, 2014

10:52pm June 3rd, 2014

I have been trying to write a blog post for several weeks now and I haven’t once finished it in a timely enough manner that I wanted to post it. Here goes…(again)

I have been fighting with my weight and body image for a while and fighting with feeling as though I am not sexy or desirable. And I know that a lot of this ties into the fact that I am surrounded by and bombarded with images of what society deems to be attractive and I don’t fit any of those stereotypes.  My solution has been to start a private tumblr where I can focus on non-mainstream ideals of beauty and sexiness and desirability. So far it seems to be helping. Hopefully I can keep up with it and it will be helpful.


I have been back on skates several times lately and I feel better about it every time I lace up. I have not made it into the gym though. I am doing a good job of not beating myself up about that. Between work and derby I am spending easily 60 hours a week doing this outside of my house. Sometimes I just want to sit at home and veg. But I do need to keep trying to make an effort. I will get there.


Meanwhile, I am working, working, working. I have a set number of hours on my contract and I want to have it complete no later than probably the 12th of September (it officially ends on the 16th.) So far I have been holding my own to get the hours that I need and while it is going to make for some long weeks I am not feeling nearly as drained by this as I was when I did ALL those hours in one month last year. I am still watching the want ads for a job, but if nothing materializes then I will stay here until something does. And maybe a full-time spot will open here. That would be pretty excellent.


JD and I have had some rather long and introspective conversations as of late and it has been really good for us to have had these talks. I think we are continuing to grow as a couple and it is wonderful. We have some plans for next weekend since I am doing derby stuff this weekend and the following weekend and things are progressing about as well as I think they can be.  We are coming up on two years together in August and there are some days that it seems like forever and other days when two years seems impossible. Here’s to many, many more.


And after several weeks of trying to write I have managed to complete a blog post. I think I will email it to myself and put it up on the blog later since I am at the office right now. It is 530pm on June 2, 2014. How long before I remember to post this one? LOL (And the answer is roughly 29.5 hours from the time of completion.)

Friday, April 11, 2014

Further discoveries of self



So I am over my sad about missing Texas (although I admit I will still miss it) and I am trying to get back into the swing of being me again. I have noticed over the last few months as I settle into a good routine with my meds and try to get enough sleep and eat better (that last one still needs TONS of work) I am getting back to a person that I was a long time ago.

If anyone that reads this knows me from high school and remembers the IDGAF attitude that I sported for those 4 years, that attitude is definitely starting to make a comeback. Two of the biggest things that I have noticed about myself in this regard are the fact that I don’t really care if people look at me and think I’m fat (that doesn’t mean I don’t want to be healthier) and that I have returned to being much more outspoken than I had been. I don’t think either of these are bad changes in my life.

I am looking at getting more involved with the local roller derby league again and doing something other than announcing, but it will be a bit before I know for sure what I am doing. Skating isn’t back on the radar quite yet. But I have finally figured out WHY I keep saying I am going to go to the gym and then I flake out on it. Long story short I pretty much hate any kind of cardio that isn’t fun so that leaves me with skating and some biking. I don’t actually own a bike and riding a stationary is NOT the same. And since I’m not ready to skate yet, what is a girl to do?

I mean I can beat the hell out of myself on the elliptical trying to lose a pound or two but it isn’t going to be terribly effective if I half ass it because I’m bored. Or I can look at ways to use weight training as cardio and do something I find enjoyable that helps me gain muscle and shed pounds when I combine with better eating habits. And as I do those things I will feel more like me and more ready to get back on my skates with the newer skaters and get my skills back. Even if I choose not to return to competitive derby I will feel better and enjoy myself just getting to skate. So I think is going to be a goal that I work towards. I am also going to eventually see about learning to lift free weights in addition to the body weight stuff that I can do at home without the gym. And maybe yoga, but that remains to be seen. I feel like maybe I am being almost too ambitious, but I think that is fear talking to me and I am going to tell fear to go the hell away and STFU!

No matter what I do I will never be skinny and there will always be people out there that will call me fat or ugly or too this or too that and not all of those things will be favorable comparisons. I just can’t waste my time caring about that crap any more. I don’t have the energy for it and I want to be able to get a good night’s sleep instead of being restless and worried and scared. So I am going to finally do something about it.

Monday, March 31, 2014

Texan til I die

Every time I take a trip home it always breaks my heart to leave. It seems like it must be true that you can take the girl out of Texas, but you can’t take the Texas out of the girl. I’d give anything if I could move in the fall when my contract is up, but I know that JD would be miserable in Texas and I just do not want to do that to him. I’d like for us to find a place to live that we can both agree on, but we have such different climate preferences that I don’t know if that is going to work.  I feel like we are going to end up in a place where one of us is less than happy. And that sucks…

He has indicated that he will follow me to Texas if that is really what I want, but that just seems so unfair to me and bothers me on a level that I struggle to comprehend. And I get scared that he would go with me to Texas and then decide that he was terribly unhappy and it would cause problems between us. That isn’t something that I want.

Annoyingly enough, however, because I am so stressed about coming back here from Texas and wanting so badly to go back that I am having some very strange dreams about what might have been if I had taken a different path that didn’t include getting married at 18. And those dreams are weighing heavy on my mind for some reason. I think it is only natural for people to wonder what might have been if they had lived differently, but I’m so depressed at being back in NY that I am having a hard time shaking the memory of those dreams. I don’t want to give up what I have now and I certainly have no intention of doing so. My subconscious mind is just acting up because I miss Texas.

Of course, my subconscious mind is also feeding into my sexual fantasies and poking me about what it might have been like with a certain male friend if one of us would have had the guts to speak up a decade ago and suggest that maybe we should date. Apparently said friend feels the same way about me, but neither of us ever had the courage to act. And at this point I’m not willing to give up what I have for what might have been and he is a good enough friend that he wouldn’t dream of seriously asking that of me.  So we will both be left to wonder, but it will go no further.

Friday, March 14, 2014

Reaching for normal



I have been doing better and better lately at taking my meds and not being a mess (although I forgot them yesterday morning and I was mostly OK) and I have also decided that accepting my body for what it is should be something that I focus on. It all kind of clicked in my head when I was really sick last week that the time and energy I was wasting on hating myself just wasn’t worth it. So I’m working on changing my outlook.

 And in addition to that I am also looking at trying to remove negative people, attitudes, and forces from my life. I am negative enough on my own and I don’t need to be surrounded by a bunch of people are negative especially living in a community where negativity is the norm. Instead I will work to be less negative (notice that I did NOT say more positive J ) and to let negativity that I happen to encounter out and about not get to me.

 My tattoo craving has been in high gear lately and I have been really doing some looking about what I want to do about getting new tattoos and repairing some of the ones that I feel like could use some brightening up. I am also looking at finding some new artists to work with because I am tired of all the drama that seems to pop up at local shops. I have a list of pieces that I want to get and I am always adding to or changing the list. Currently I am trying to decide what I want to put on my feet and where I want to put the teapot that I am looking at getting as well. And I just had a flash of inspiration and it looks like I will be getting words tattooed on both feet, but may or may not add any kind of flowers or design or anything. I’m sure on that point yet, but I will keep puzzling over them.

 And I am out of crazy tattoo stuff and positivity to share for the moment so I’m packing up and moving on with my day. More another time!

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Written 2/24 and Posted 2/25 cause I forgot to post yesterday! Oops!



My weekend was mostly quiet. I spent Saturday picking up some extra hours at the office and then did a bit of fabric dyeing later in the day. I still have stains on my hands from the dye, but they aren’t too bad. I keep saying I will buy a pair of rubber gloves and then I forget to pick them up. Oops! I need to run the dress and pair of jeans through a washer to remove any excess dye then the dress will need to have the buttons replaced. Joy. I hate sewing buttons. Although after getting dressed this morning I am hoping that said dress still fits me as the new jeans that I bought in a 22 and assumed would fit me because m 24s are too big are a little on the tight side. That made me a little sad and frustrated and I am wondering if I can get enough gym time in over the next few weeks to shed even a tiny bit of weight to make them fit a smidge better.

Anyway…so I dyed some clothing and am annoyed at buttons, but I also completed my first pair of galaxy shoes that I painted myself. They aren’t bad, but I am seriously thinking I am going to buy a couple more pairs of cheap shoes and some more paint and try again at least one and possibly twice and see what happens. I will still wear the first pair that I did after I have finished them with a spray sealant, but I want to see if I can improve upon my technique and do better. I also might try a different technique for a similar look on a pair of white shoes, because why not!

Tonight I need to stop at the local fresh produce/deli place, run to Walmart for cat food (Colt monster likes his new food much better and is about to get put on portion control before he gets any fatter), and I think JD and I may grab pizza for dinner. Yes, I know pizza for dinner won’t help me lose any weight, but I cannot eat healthy ALL the time. That said…


I need to start eating healthy again and really work at trying to moderate my portions while staying full enough that I don’t feel the urge to graze. I also need to get back on my liquid intake and with warmer weather coming I will probably get back into more smoothies and that may also be helpful if I can find a good way to make them that is less sugar heavy. I will have to rally do some looking and see what I can do. I know that I go through phases where I say that I am tired of being fat and that I need to make all these changes and they have never stuck, but I feel like eventually that I have to start getting better about taking care of myself and having JD to help me seems to really make a difference.

On the down note of my weekend as I was painting my shoes yesterday I realized that I was shaking very, very hard. Dropping paint brushes and dripping paint kind of hard. But I was so focused on painting my shoes that these were only minor annoyances and I was almost in a frenzy of creativity. And then I finished my shoes and really noticed just how bad I was shaking. It made me feel really out of control so I went and found JD and he laid in bed with me for probably an hour just holding me so that I could try and calm down. It still took a while and I was jittery  off and on for most of the evening and I appear to be a bit faster than usual this morning as well so hopefully I will settle down as the day wears on.

Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Finally..an update!



So I have been incredibly, super, mega bad about keeping up with my blog lately. I’ve written at least 3 posts that never made it any further than my desktop because I was just too lazy to publish them. But since they were mostly written when I really depressed or in a mixed state there was a lot of whining in them.  Maybe it is better that I didn’t get around to posting them. I don’t know.

Things have been pretty low key. I haven’t noticed any major mood changes with the meds I am currently on (tegretol was added at the appt. before last if I didn’t mention that) and at my last apt. I was told to try taking my Prozac in the AM and also had blood work ordered that I need to get done before my next appointment in March.

Also in March I am going to visit family that I haven’t seen in several years and JD will be joining me to meet them. I know it is going to be incredibly hard and stressful for him so I have tried to do what I can to alleviate as much worry for him as possible. And I am incredibly grateful that he is going with me. It really does mean a lot and I don’t think I can explain to him just how much it means to me. I’m not even sure that there are words in the English language to convey how I feel about it. Mom and I are considering matching tattoos if we can come up with something that we can agree upon.

 I keep telling myself that I need to go to the gym and try to lose even 5 pounds before the trip. I’ve been telling myself that I need to go to the gym since the first of the year though and it hasn’t happened yet. Part of it is largely due to my own lack of motivation that I suffer with as a part of my mental health issues and the other part has more to do with the weather being cold and miserable and awful and I don’t want to leave the house or go to the gym because gym clothes aren’t terribly warm. So basically I need to suck it the hell up and go to the gym. Five pounds in a month doesn’t seem like a lot, but if that is ALL I lost that would be 60 pounds in a year. This means that in two years if all I did was lose fat and not gain muscle I would be at a healthier weight that I wouldn’t hate quite so much. However, even with muscle gains I would still be healthier even at a higher weight. After all, the number on the scale doesn’t determine my self-worth. I don’t have gym gear with me today (hell, I don’t even know where it is) and I might not find it tonight or tomorrow, but I really need to recognize that taking care of myself both physically and mentally should be more of a priority in my life.

So with that said I need to get my ass back on the gym wagon and start going. Also, a former teammate told me that I should come and skate at fresh meat nights with her for derby and offered to give me rides to the rink if I don’t have gas so there is also that. It would be something nice to get back into even if I am starting all over as a freshie. And really if I can get my body back to a point that I think I can skate again then I might be a better skater than I was before just because I will be getting a refresher on all those skills and really working harder to improve them because I do want derby back. The fear I have here is that I am going to go skate and start getting back into things and then crash and burn like I have the last few times that I have tried to do derby. So I’m going to take it slow and ease my way back into things. I don’t have a choice anymore. Managing the stress in my life has to become a priority or I simply shut down and can’t function normally. I am pretty damn tired of not being able to function like a normal human being. I want my life back.