Life Before Derby: It Was The Best/Worst Of Times (mostly worst)

I wouldn't say I was a total alcoholic or anything, but here's what life was like when I was 21, the year before derby: Love, drink, smoke, cry.

Yay!: I had just met the love of my life (now fiance). And I had got an awesome pair of skates at a thrift store that looked a lot like this:

Boo!: I was just beginning to realize how toxic my lifestyle was.

When you don't know who you are yet, life is just a series of distractions you use to fill the gaping hole within you that screams: You are NOT fulfilling your potential!!!!

My "friends" at the time were a bunch of punk rock wannabes and we were living in a toxic wasteland of drinking and drama. If I could sum it up in a picture it would be:

The only bright spot (besides meeting the love of my life) was that we had all started to do our bar hopping on roller skates. Something about rollerskating in the night just felt right. I seemed to be the only one in my circle who didn't totally suck at it, too.

On one such night of debauchery on wheels I reached back behind me, offering a hand to one of my "friends" and shouted, "I'll give you a whip!"

Which resulted in her looking like a drunken pile on the ground, but I was more stunned by this word that had just come out of my mouth... WTF was a "whip"???

Unlike most of the derby vets of my time, I had never heard of roller derby. Not one memory of it being on TV or anything. So where did this whip thing come from??

It would be another year of drinking and tears before I would ever hear that word from another person.
Was it destiny?? A memory of a past life?? I still don't know the answer to that mystery. All I knew was this roller skating was awesome, and I wanted to do more of it!

You might know me as a generally happy person, and I totally am! But you know what, that's not how I started out. It's been an evolution, and a conscious choice.

So I'm gonna be giving a little back story before we get to the magic...

Did you have any reference for roller derby before you were a part of it? Were you in a transitional period before you found out about it too?

Feel free to tell me all about it. Have a rad day today! Here's my parting gift: