Homesickness for the place you're in

This season can, for me, be summarized by a feeling of homesickness. Every year until grad school, I moved back and forth from Vermont to Yellowstone, throwing in a couple seasons in Wisconsin and Minnesota every once in a while. And the weirdest thing was feeling homesick for the place I was at! In Yellowstone, people move a lot - it's just the nature of the Park Service. When my friend Alexis's family (my true second family) moved to Alaska but I was still back in Yellowstone the next summer, I had a vague feeling of homesickness the whole season.

That's how I felt with the Dixie Derby Girls this whole year.  I was there the whole time, but so many things were missing, or I was missing so many things.

Chronological recap
March 6 at Big Easy: Missed signing up for this game after mistakenly thinking it was for the newest girls only
March 19 home scrimmage v. Vette City: Busted my knee on the first jam when my kneepad slid off. The first jam! Hobbled around for weeks with a giant fluidy lump and felt sorry for myself. Bought better kneepads.
March 27 at OK City: See above. Still couldn't walk well. Probably cried during game time while I was sitting at home still feeling sorry for myself.
April 10 at Biloxi: Best game ever! Woohoo! Hit better than I ever have during the second half, thanks to a few words from Snidely saying to stop listening to the coaches and just do what needs to be done (sorry, coaches).
April 17 home v. Panama City: Home season opener. Blowout. I felt bad for the other team playing so poorly. No fun to watch and hardly fun to play.
May 1 at Houston: Dad visiting from Vermont. Stayed home.
May 15 home v. Hard Knox: Played in this game but don't remember it. Could have been the one with all the drama on the bench that I tried to not to remember (and succeeded)?
June 12-13 at No Coast and Green Country: After nearly a year of unemployment, got a job. Not able to take time off for days and days of endless driving briefly punctuated by bouts.
June 19 home v. Big Easy: Out of town for a wedding. Back in time to watch the last part of the second game.
July 17-18, Rocket City Rumble: Game v. Tampa. Ugh. We got killed. I didn't get to play much. But when they did put me in, I scored a bunch of points (comparatively speaking, since collectively we certainly didn't score a bunch of points, maybe like 20).
Game v. Memphis. Lots of miscommunication on the bench. Pretty happy with my semi-effective and comparatively penalty-free performance. (Again, comparatively speaking, since, like, half our team was ejected). Emotionally, the beginning of the end.
August 28 home v. Tallahassee: Played well. Had fun. Sad we lost.
August 28 home v. mixed team: Played well. Had fun. Sad the other team wasn't more competitive. Loved skating with the new girls!
September 11-12 at Panama City and Tallahassee: Drove to Minnesota for a wedding and to see relatives.
October 23 at Chattanooga: Pregnant. Found out a week earlier. Had a feeling about it and briefly considered not peeing on the stick for another week so I could still play. Somehow, responsible part of brain won out. Too exhausted to even go watch, anyway.

Emotional recap
So pumped about new season!
So disappointed about stupid injuries.
So happy to have a derby wife! Bettie PageTurner! Triple yay! (I know, an unsocial person like me...?)
So happy about Sky Pi joining derby and becoming awesome! Yay, Lutherans!
So sad about lots of things. Teammates say terrible things to other teammates that can't be undone, and the people saying the terrible things wouldn't unsay them even if they could. As Code of Conduct committee chair, I got to hear all of it. It was so difficult. It's still so difficult. (Imagine how you felt in middle school when people slighted you. Now imagine that in a real-life situation but with people that you actually care about. You know, unlike your former classmates whose names you probably can't even remember.)
So happy about Sindy Sawblade joining derby and becoming awesome! Yay, more Lutherans! (Ha ha.)
So sad about more terrible things being said. We can handle the sticks and stones, but the words hurt so much more. And they're not even intended for me.
So happy about baby! Yay! Baby! (Many fears that this kid will be like me. Many prayers that he or she will be inclined toward Jeff's temperament. The lyrics of Brad Paisley's "Anything Like Me" kind of haunts me. See previous post for details.)
So sad about not playing next season.
But so happy about coaching freshmeat! Woohoo!

And that's my official recap for the season. It might seem like I abandoned this blog, but really I've been deciding (for months, whew!) whether to stay with DDG, which is like home but also like so much homesickness. People always say that home is supposed to be a place of happiness and coziness and all good feelings all the time, but DDG and this past season, I think, are more like Kathleen Norris's vision: "Home ought to be our clearinghouse, the place from which we go forth lessoned and disciplined, and ready for life." I'll be in the same place this year but it will be a whole different feeling.