"How are you feeling, Amber?"
Fuck you, facebook. I don't want to tell you how I'm feeling. I don't want to leave a cryptic, half assed, whiny, emotional, feeling sorry for myself status that people are going to look at and say "What's wrong?", or "Do you want to talk about it". I do want to talk about it, but not on facebook. I want real friends to really care and really ask "How are you?".
So I turn to you, my trusty, under-utilized, left in the cold livejournal. You, that is always there with a big open box just waiting to be filled with text. No character limits, no asking how I'm doing or how I'm feeling or what's going on... but always there to let everything spill out. I might not have a billion friends here, there's a chance very few people will even read this, and I'm ok with that because sometimes you just have to write everything down to wrap your own head around it. So here goes :)
I'm moving to Kansas City. Yup, me who has never left Tucson, has never wanted to leave Tucson... Well, and it's not just me, we're moving. Jason and Tatum and I. It's been a weird rollercoaster of emotions. We haven't even left yet, and I think I've run the gamut. I've cried (a lot), I've been excited, I've been nervous, I've been worried, and then I cried some more. I'm ready, for the most part. I'm ready to start a new adventure and try something I've never done. I'm ready to start over in a new place and do better things and be a better me. Of course there are things I'll be leaving behind, like my family and my friends and everything I know, so that's scary. It's hard to meet new people and make new friends when you're an adult! But we want to get a house with some land. We want to be in a place where we can be more financially stable and have room for growth and expansion in careers.I want to go back to school, and if we're paying less on a house payment and less in bills and making more money, it's feasible. I'm going to have goats! Cute nigerian dwarf goats! I'm going to breed them and make goat cheese and milk. I might open a stand at a farmers market with my friend Carmen who moved there recently. I'll get to see family I haven't seen in years that live in the areas surrounding, and I'll meet new people somehow :) Jason already has done some interviews, he's pretty sure he's landed his job. He's got a couple more this week, maybe. We won't go until he has work, obviously, but it's definitely coming down the pipeline faster than I expected.
But, that also leaves me torn. I'm mid-season for derby, which shouldn't mean that much but it does to me. I'm finally on our All-Star team again, and I'd joined this season in hopes of getting to play one last tournament and "prove myself" before I retired. Who I was trying to prove myself to, I'm not sure. Me, maybe? I knew I was going to be done with derby after this season, because my body just can't take any more. I'm tired, I'm hurting... it's time for me to be finished but I wanted to give it one last season and go out with a bang. However, this season has been a whirlwind already. We've won games, we've lost games, we've gained skaters and lost them.... I seperated my shoulder, but played in an All-Star game a week later (stupid, I know). We won, and even though I didn't score many (any?) points and didn't do as much for the team as I would have liked, I was there.I got to skate with the team and wear the jersey and feel like I belonged. Playing in the game made the shoulder worse (obviously) which put me on the bench during a home team game for the first time. It broke my heart, honestly, and it was a game that we ended up losing. That made me feel like crap, because I kept thinking "If I was out there, I could have helped. I could have done this or that or fixed it".
The shoulder got (mostly) better, I went back to skating, and the first scrimmage back someone landed on the back of my knee. It hurt, it swelled, but it felt better in a week so of course I skated again. I took one fall on it, and it was horrible pain and hard to move and swelled again. Did I stop skating? Of course not, because I'm a hard headed idiot. So now it hurts. It's a constant pain, constantly swollen, hard to bend, won't straighten all the way. I've just given up on it feeling better, honestly, which is a stupid decision health wise. But I hate telling people I can't do something. I hate that I have to go to the All-Star captain and tell her "I can't do this". I hate that we have a HUGE home team game coming up this weekend, which I'll skate in, but I'm not even excited about it because I know it's a hard hitting team and my team will be playing short. I hate knowing that my team is relying on me to do something, and I hate that there's a chance I won't be able to rise to the occasion. I hate feeling like I'm making all these excuses to NOT do something, even though they aren't really excuses and they are legitimate reasons. I want to put my all into it while I still can and while I'm still in town, but my body is telling me "Fuck you, if you didn't stop after the shoulder I'll give you something else to quit for". I'll most likely miss the tournament and our next All-Star game, either because of the pain or the moving, and it's killing me. I'm having to quit doing the one thing I finally got right, the one thing I knew I was good at. And it really hurts. More than the shoulder, more than the knee. It hurts my heart.
I've started mentally checking out of Tucson. Knowing me and how I react to things, I feel like I'm pushing things away to make it easier when I leave. It's probably not a good thing, but I can feel it happening. I'm pulling away from derby and my friends (which sucks), it's hard for me to go to practice knowing that I can't be at 100% and that I won't be helping the team once I've gone. I'm pulling away from my job. I'm starting to think about what things I want to take with me and what things I can leave behind or sell or donate. I'm kind of an emotional wreck, but it's not all bad.
It's hard to think about letting everything go, but I take comfort in knowing that I'm opening a new door. I want to shut the doors behind me, but I don't want to shut things out. It's a fine line, for me, because it turns out I'm really good at shutting people and things out and not looking back and putting on a face like it didn't matter. But everything I'm leaving behind is a part of me. Everything I've done and everyone I know all have a tiny piece of my heart. All those pieces make me who I am, and I'll carry it with me no matter where I go.
The going is the hard part
So I turn to you, my trusty, under-utilized, left in the cold livejournal. You, that is always there with a big open box just waiting to be filled with text. No character limits, no asking how I'm doing or how I'm feeling or what's going on... but always there to let everything spill out. I might not have a billion friends here, there's a chance very few people will even read this, and I'm ok with that because sometimes you just have to write everything down to wrap your own head around it. So here goes :)
I'm moving to Kansas City. Yup, me who has never left Tucson, has never wanted to leave Tucson... Well, and it's not just me, we're moving. Jason and Tatum and I. It's been a weird rollercoaster of emotions. We haven't even left yet, and I think I've run the gamut. I've cried (a lot), I've been excited, I've been nervous, I've been worried, and then I cried some more. I'm ready, for the most part. I'm ready to start a new adventure and try something I've never done. I'm ready to start over in a new place and do better things and be a better me. Of course there are things I'll be leaving behind, like my family and my friends and everything I know, so that's scary. It's hard to meet new people and make new friends when you're an adult! But we want to get a house with some land. We want to be in a place where we can be more financially stable and have room for growth and expansion in careers.I want to go back to school, and if we're paying less on a house payment and less in bills and making more money, it's feasible. I'm going to have goats! Cute nigerian dwarf goats! I'm going to breed them and make goat cheese and milk. I might open a stand at a farmers market with my friend Carmen who moved there recently. I'll get to see family I haven't seen in years that live in the areas surrounding, and I'll meet new people somehow :) Jason already has done some interviews, he's pretty sure he's landed his job. He's got a couple more this week, maybe. We won't go until he has work, obviously, but it's definitely coming down the pipeline faster than I expected.
But, that also leaves me torn. I'm mid-season for derby, which shouldn't mean that much but it does to me. I'm finally on our All-Star team again, and I'd joined this season in hopes of getting to play one last tournament and "prove myself" before I retired. Who I was trying to prove myself to, I'm not sure. Me, maybe? I knew I was going to be done with derby after this season, because my body just can't take any more. I'm tired, I'm hurting... it's time for me to be finished but I wanted to give it one last season and go out with a bang. However, this season has been a whirlwind already. We've won games, we've lost games, we've gained skaters and lost them.... I seperated my shoulder, but played in an All-Star game a week later (stupid, I know). We won, and even though I didn't score many (any?) points and didn't do as much for the team as I would have liked, I was there.I got to skate with the team and wear the jersey and feel like I belonged. Playing in the game made the shoulder worse (obviously) which put me on the bench during a home team game for the first time. It broke my heart, honestly, and it was a game that we ended up losing. That made me feel like crap, because I kept thinking "If I was out there, I could have helped. I could have done this or that or fixed it".
The shoulder got (mostly) better, I went back to skating, and the first scrimmage back someone landed on the back of my knee. It hurt, it swelled, but it felt better in a week so of course I skated again. I took one fall on it, and it was horrible pain and hard to move and swelled again. Did I stop skating? Of course not, because I'm a hard headed idiot. So now it hurts. It's a constant pain, constantly swollen, hard to bend, won't straighten all the way. I've just given up on it feeling better, honestly, which is a stupid decision health wise. But I hate telling people I can't do something. I hate that I have to go to the All-Star captain and tell her "I can't do this". I hate that we have a HUGE home team game coming up this weekend, which I'll skate in, but I'm not even excited about it because I know it's a hard hitting team and my team will be playing short. I hate knowing that my team is relying on me to do something, and I hate that there's a chance I won't be able to rise to the occasion. I hate feeling like I'm making all these excuses to NOT do something, even though they aren't really excuses and they are legitimate reasons. I want to put my all into it while I still can and while I'm still in town, but my body is telling me "Fuck you, if you didn't stop after the shoulder I'll give you something else to quit for". I'll most likely miss the tournament and our next All-Star game, either because of the pain or the moving, and it's killing me. I'm having to quit doing the one thing I finally got right, the one thing I knew I was good at. And it really hurts. More than the shoulder, more than the knee. It hurts my heart.
I've started mentally checking out of Tucson. Knowing me and how I react to things, I feel like I'm pushing things away to make it easier when I leave. It's probably not a good thing, but I can feel it happening. I'm pulling away from derby and my friends (which sucks), it's hard for me to go to practice knowing that I can't be at 100% and that I won't be helping the team once I've gone. I'm pulling away from my job. I'm starting to think about what things I want to take with me and what things I can leave behind or sell or donate. I'm kind of an emotional wreck, but it's not all bad.
It's hard to think about letting everything go, but I take comfort in knowing that I'm opening a new door. I want to shut the doors behind me, but I don't want to shut things out. It's a fine line, for me, because it turns out I'm really good at shutting people and things out and not looking back and putting on a face like it didn't matter. But everything I'm leaving behind is a part of me. Everything I've done and everyone I know all have a tiny piece of my heart. All those pieces make me who I am, and I'll carry it with me no matter where I go.
The going is the hard part