Some things happen quickly, some happen slower, but when it’s important they will happen, no matter how long it takes. My path to derby has been a long one. It started in 2010, I went to some random event in downtown Toronto. At the time I lived downtown and inline skated everywhere I went. There was a girl at the event who talked to me about skating, and told me about the sport she played on roller skates. That if I liked to skate I might be interested in it, and should check out roller derby. I went home, mentioned it to my boyfriend who asked me if I even knew what it was (I didn’t). He wasn’t sure it was really my thing.
Really he was kinda right. I am not a sporty girl at all. I hadn’t played a sport since high school, and couldn’t be less interested in watching them. So the fast passed, zooming around a track, and checking other girls game is not something someone who knows me would have guessed I would be drawn to. Yet I was. There is something about the proud femininity, while ignoring the traditional idea of a fragile girl that I adore of this sport.
My potential Derby stardom got delayed when I ended up moving to British Columbia for a short adventure. We returned to Ontario in December, and Toronto in February, and before I even had an apartment I had contacted GTA roller girls about starting derby. My timing couldn`t have been more off. Fresh Meet training was halfway through and to my surprise roller skates are not inline skates. Who would have thought? My first day on quad wheels was a wobbly experience.
It was clear to me that I wouldn’t be able to learn what I needed jumping into fresh meat half way. So I told Splat I still was interested in being a part of things even if I wasn’t going to be skating anytime soon. I ended up coming to the Toronto games as an NSO for the 2011 season. While I waited, excitedly, for Fresh Meet in September.
September 2011 was the start of multiple new adventures for me. Derby, and Chemical Engineering. I returned to university, four years after I had finished collage. In a sense they both started on the same day – where I came to the fresh meet drop in day purple, it was the middle of Frosh Week. I couldn’t have been more excited or more hopeful.
Then I brook my foot. I had played a random pick up soccer game with some people from school and gotten hurt in the process. At first I didn’t think much of it, my toe was purple then it got better. But the last week of September my left foot was twice as big as my right. A few days later I came home, my foot in a cast, having the worst time possible moving. I sat down and started crying and crying, because I knew. I knew that was it, derby was over for the year. Over time my foot healed, I tried the skills test, but there really wasn’t much to it… you can’t learn to skate if you are not skating.
I continued to NSO throughout 2012, skated as much as I could over the summer. Back to (another purple) fresh meet drop in day, and the new set of Fresh Meet training. Leading up to now, here we are at the minimum skills test. Yet for me, pass or fail, it’s just another event in the story. Where ever it goes from here it’s not the end. Three years ago this game got a hold of me, and it’s not letting go.
