BCR-style thank-you letter: Ten things I learned this weekend

Various members of the Burn City Rollers post "Ten things I learned this weekend" notes on Facebook following bouts. That's what this is all about.

10. While DDG is my team, everyone I skated with from Auburn is also, equally, my team.
9. I cannot be thankful enough to Cho Cold for having her crazy idea to start a roller derby team. And I certainly can't be thankful enough for all the memories of practices where I felt like dying because of the strenuousness of the workouts. They really got me through that horrible last semester.
8. BCR has more logo and color changes than any team I know. But it is a successful ploy to sell more merch (at least to me)!
7. Amyn is ridiculously skinny. Really. I can't get over how much less of her there is, but how much more menacing she is on the track.
6. When I was benchcoaching, this weird thing kept happening: I kept looking at the track, thinking, "Wow, that skater on the other team really looks like Cho." ... "Oh, yeah, that is Cho." Either I'm not observant or just super-focused on the bench.
5. Even though Venna Viper, Super Combo, BTE, Babe E. Quakes, and Lucy Ferocious aren't a part of BCR anymore, they still are in my head. Their absence was striking. (And everyone else who moved or left, but especially them.)
4. 9lb Hammer is, like, 20 times faster than she was a year ago!
3. I've always been one to leave an afterparty early, but it was still really sad to not go at all. I woke up at one in the morning, thinking, "I should be leg-wrestling at The End Zone right now."
2. Mary Helley's enthusiasm while saying this bout was the first time she'd been on a winning team almost made up for my disappointment at being on the losing team. But not quite. I'd really have liked to win.

1. 9 and Amyn walking toward me at the VBC with a basket full of baby things from BCR was a rather surreal experience, and so heartwarming. I'm not much given toward sentimentality, but that gift meant, unexpectedly, so much to me. It said, "Hey, you haven't been in Auburn for nearly two years, and you're not skating anymore, but we thought about you. And took action." I don't take that kind of considerateness for granted. Thank you so much, all of you, for that, and for creating my love of derby.

Derby dream montage

This weekend, my old roller derby team, the Burn City Rollers, will play my new roller derby team, the Dixie Derby Girls for our first home game of the season. I'm super excited (though not as excited as I would be if I could actually hit some of my old teammates! Out of affection, of course, not malice).

The fact of this upcoming game combined with the awesomeness that was last night's practice, along with my unfortunate lack of deep sleep caused by this baby referee kicking around in my abdomen, gave me a full night's worth of roller derby montage dreams. It was just like being at the movies but way cooler.

Disgrace Kelley telling me when she's jammed in scrimmage, she knows she'll get through the pack when she sees DISPATCHher on the track. DISPATCHher saying she tries to look out for her girls.

9lb Hammer wearing the most adorable tutus ever. And hitting girls hard. But still adorably.

The first hard hit I ever took, Lucy Ferocious putting me on the ground when I wasn't looking. Getting up and laughing as I took off after her.

The BCR inaugural meeting at some bar in Auburn, with Dixie Thrash saying she can tell right off which girls aren't going to stick with it while looking me in the eye. Me asking her later what it is she thought she saw in me that said "quitter."

BOA and eRacer X gleefully exclaiming something at each other, maybe that they finally were on the same scrimmage team. Unimportant words in the midst of unadulterated enthusiasm.

Seeing an unfamiliar girl wearing sparkly booty shorts––taller than me––warming up. And realizing it's Snidely.

Being consoled by Amyn Atcha in the most disgusting bathroom on earth (Skate Center, Auburn) about something long irrelevant, probably related to grad school or the torture that was wedding planning.

Seeing the hustle that has suddenly energized Sawblade Sindy and given her a sense of purpose on the track.

Taking down Dixie Thrash at last year's scrimmage.

Reliving every hilarious moment of Cho Cold's antics at Anna Malinstinct's unforgettable and ridiculous sleepover.

Crying in my car after practice and the intense embarrassment of having C.U. Afterclass ask me what was wrong, my answer being, "People are such complainers. Why can't practice be harder? I hardly ever feel like I'm going to die by the end of it."

Taking the hardest hit of my life (including rugby) from Cakeface Killa at the Spread the Love scrimmage and having a bruised sternum and rib for weeks. But liking it a lot.

Getting to be on the bottom of the derby girl pyramid at The End Zone.

Watching the apparent effortlessness Ebbin Flow and Pinky Tuscadero put into the game.

Remembering how difficult it was to make room for derby in my last-year-of-grad-school schedule, but how very rewarding.

I've never thought of either of my teams as "my derby family" as so many girls do, but as something different and somehow better. C.S. Lewis summed it up, “Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, 'What! You too? I thought I was the only one.'”