There's nothing wrong with hitting someone when her back is turned

"And there's nothing wrong with hitting someone when his back is turned." I heard that quote on The Simpsons once, and how true it is in roller derby!

Last week, scrimmaging during practice, Cakeface Killa hit me about a hundred times in the same spot every single time I looked away for a millisecond. It was great! When a girl hits you with all she's got because she knows you can take it, it just warms your heart.

I've been thinking a lot lately about my old job. I worked as an administrative assistant for an associate dean in the College of Liberal Arts at Auburn. It was a busy, stressful job, and the day-to-day work was largely autonomous. When I first started, my boss would give fairly specific instructions on how I should do the work. As the days and months and years went on, she would just say, "Do this," and just count on me to get it done.

When I first started working, the job was just another job, my boss just another boss. As I learned to take the hits, so to speak - the incessant emails, the crazily complicated scheduling and rescheduling, the event planning, the budget tracking, the inevitable complaints found in all of academia - it became something more. Because my boss trusted me so much, I respected and admired her immensely, much more than anyone else I've ever worked for or with.

When the Burn City Rollers were just beginning to scrimmage, all of us still shaky and skating in a scattered pack, our hits were tentative and uncertain. None of us had played roller derby before and most hadn't played any contact sports. We were very earnest, though, and ready to be a real, seasoned team. One night, after our first week or so of scrimmaging, Lucy Ferocious laid me out. I remember I was on the outside curve of the turn closest to the skating rink entrance. Suddenly, I was on the floor wondering if I was still breathing!

And then, magically, I respected and admired Lucy more than anyone on our whole team. She didn't hold back and she didn't apologize. Her hitting me with all she had told me that the invincibility and intensity I feel inside was, at least a little, showing through.

Now, with DDG, a bunch of girls have just started scrimmaging in the past few months. At first, it's hard to hit them hard - they're so sweet in real life and they're focusing so hard on staying in position on the track. But, as soon as I knock one of those girls down when she's not looking, I hope she knows that I'm saying, "I believe in you. You are an amazing skater and a formidable teammate."

And I hope someday I can find another job working for someone who lets me figure out problems on my own. There's just something about getting knocked down or finishing a difficult assignment that makes a person try harder, get stronger, be more determined.